The future of Adobe Fireworks

by Heidi Voltmer

Created

Today at the MAX conference we announced the latest generation of our creative tools now known as CC including Photoshop CC, Dreamweaver CC, Flash Professional CC, Edge Animate CC, and many others. As you may have noticed this announcement did not include updates to Fireworks CS6.

Over the last couple of years, there has been an increasing amount of overlap in the functionality between Fireworks and both existing and new programs like Photoshop, Illustrator, and Edge Reflow. At the same time we have shifted to focus our engineering teams on building smaller, more modular, tools and services for specific tasks in web design. Due to this overlap and as well as our change in our product development focus, we have decided not to update Fireworks to CC and instead will focus on developing new tools to meet our customers needs.

While we are not planning further feature development for Fireworks, we will continue to sell Fireworks CS6 as well as make it available as part of the Creative Cloud. We will provide security updates as necessary and may provide bug fixes. We plan to update Fireworks to support the next major releases of both Mac OS X and Windows. As more specific details on the next version of Windows and Mac OS X are made available, we may adjust these plans.

We understand that Fireworks has one of the most passionate communities on the web, and that this change will be difficult to accept. Our goal in refocusing our development efforts is to build a new-generation of task focused tools that enable our customers to create great web content.

The Web Platform and Authoring team

Updated Q&A, Wednesday October 1, 2014

We appreciate all the comments following the announcement about the future of Fireworks and would like to answer a few of the common questions that are emerging:

Does Adobe care about Fireworks customers?

Absolutely – we understand that web designers love Fireworks for it’s unique approach to page-based, stateful interaction design and rapid prototyping, and that it is an essential part of the web design process.

Why isn’t Fireworks being developed further?

Designing for the screen today is incredibly different to designing for the screen in 1998. As we considered adding new capabilities to Fireworks, we came to the conclusion that creating new, task-focused tools would better enable us to meet the future needs of web designers and developers.

What new tools is Adobe proposing to create for web design?

Adobe has embarked on creating a new collection of tools and services aimed at addressing the needs of today’s web designer – we’ve started with focusing on responsive layout, web animation and HTML, CSS and JavaScript code editing and are delivering new Edge tools to address these use cases. We are actively working on next-generation solutions for screen design and prototyping that we hope our existing Fireworks customers will love.

The show of support for Fireworks from the community has reaffirmed our belief that Adobe should continue to deliver dedicated tools for web designers – what follows Fireworks CS6 will be an revolutionary leap, designed from the ground up with the needs of the modern web designer front and center. To do this we need your help. We’d love to hear about how you work, what challenges you face, where you experience the most pain in your day to day design processes.

If you’d like to join us in the process of creating these new tools then please sign-up here.

Will Fireworks continue to be available?

Yes, Fireworks CS6 will continue to be available as part of a Creative Cloud membership.

Should I continue to use Fireworks?

Yes, if Fireworks CS6 is part of your current workflow then there is no reason to make any changes to your use of the product.

The Fireworks forum will continue to be available to CS6 users. For issues other than those related to product ownership, please post your questions on the Fireworks forum.

Is Adobe really going to fix any of the existing bugs in Fireworks?

Adobe released an update for Fireworks CS6 in mid-2013 that addressed over 25 outstanding issues, including the “File not found” issue on Mac OS 10.8 often experienced when exporting from the Image Preview dialog.

Is Adobe proposing that existing Fireworks customers switch to Photoshop?

Photoshop is a major part of the design process, but we know that Fireworks offers something unique that has made it an essential part of the web designer’s toolkit. While Photoshop is continuing to add features and workflows to support web designers, whether or not it is a good replacement for Fireworks will depend on individual needs and preferences.

COMMENTS

I have been a fan of Fireworks since I got Macromedia Fireworks 3, Dreamweaver 3, and Flash 4. I have always used Photoshop in print design and layout, but Photoshop and Adobe ImageReady (their web graphics sister to PS, back in the day) never came close to the compression:quality that the Fireworks output was. Back then, file optimization was crucial and broadband was not as commonplace. Macromedia continued to refine the workflow until Adobe acquired the. After which, Adobe’s support and improvement were good as well. There were some obvious shortcoming when it came to HTML content and CSS integration, but it was still a valuable tool. I can create an animated gif (still used occasionally in email messaging) MUCH faster in FW than PS, plus it looks better and is still a smaller file.

Fireworks, you will be missed. I thought I saw plenty of room to improve, but once the Adobe compatibility was implemented, it was always a favorite tool for web graphics. I hope that they will take some of the workflow and the JPG compression algorithm to Photoshop where they will be greatly appreciated. The timeline functionality in PS is great (and very functional for some video needs), but clunky for making animated GIF images.

Adobe, hear our pleas. If the App must die, take the best features from it and use them elsewhere. Listen to all these comments.

By Happy Meal - 6:31 PM on May 6, 2013

I’ve been using Fireworks since it’s inception with Macromedia. It is hands down the most valuable tool in my web design arsenal. I am EXTREMELY dissapointed!!! Please fire those responsible! I am going to have to reconsider Adobe altogether.

By WaveF - 7:12 PM on May 6, 2013

They keep stealing features from Fw to Ps/Ai because they think these little FEATUREs can made Ps/Ai take the place of Fireworks, but they have no idea what Fireworks is. There’re not a real big change from Fireworks 8 to Fireworks CS6, how can you expect Fw can earn as much money as Ps for you? I will keep using Fw no matter its dead or not, and I want to say: Adobe, you really don’t know Web and Internet, hope your life longer than Flash and Fireworks ;)﻿

By Franky - 8:47 PM on May 28, 2013

“Adobe, you really don’t know Web and Internet ” x2

By Lulu Tsui - 7:46 AM on June 12, 2013

Photoshop is good for editing photos

Illustrator is for print

Fireworks is for digital web/app layout

Using illustrator/photoshop for web/app layout is like asking someone to bake cookies using a stovetop….

It was a sad sad day when adobe bought macromedia…

Adobe, you have totally lost touch with your user base who are involve with web/app/digital design…

By kinbox - 12:27 AM on May 7, 2013

Since FW 8.0 before acquisition i took the tool as the best weapon for the web, n i never use any”CS”version since 2012,then the CS5’s uncertain crash really make me feel sick,the problem still exicts in CS6 version,which is still 32-bit based that may be just could not fit for the work nowadays.

” At the same time we have shifted to focus our engineering teams on building smaller, more modular, tools and services for specific tasks in web design.” U r kidding me ~~
FW is born for the web design,what adobe need to do is just to make it better rather than give it up.

By Mike - 1:30 AM on May 7, 2013

Fireworks is the only Adobe product our business uses, Photoshop is not suited to fill the gap Fireworks will leave – it’s an entirely different product.

It seems to me Adobe is out of touch with what their customers want.

By Raja - 10:15 PM on May 9, 2013

I totally accept it with you Mike

By Garland Washington - 7:35 PM on May 10, 2013

Hey I am not surprised, since Adobe purchased Macromedia then discounted Freeehand. Adobe could care less about designers, because thousands of Freehand files are ghosts of the graphics world. I purchased Freehand in college thinking that I could use this program for years to come, boy was I fooled. Now I will use other graphics programs, so I will not have to rely on Adobe’s cloud.

Sincerely, Garland Washington

By Aleks - 3:12 AM on May 7, 2013

There’s an app called Sketch, by Bohemian Coding, that is taking it’s place. It supports pages, a hybrid raster/vector approach and even supports retina displays. With a few more tweaks, it’ll do what Fireworks did best. Photoshop/Illustrator doesn’t come close to the workflow that Fireworks facilitated.

By what definition of “spamming” does this comment warrant you “calling [him] out”?

A long-time FW user, I bought Sketch for precisely the reasons mentioned… are my motives impure too? Do bear in mind that we’re discussing the demise of a piece of software that was always more web-focused than PS and that therefore discussing replacements is *perfectly* legitimate.

He’s not spamming. The software he is suggesting is the closest thing us mac users have to Fireworks. But trust us, we’d all RATHER being using Fireworks. :*(

By Kory - 2:49 PM on May 7, 2013

Sketch isn’t available for Linux or Windows, which means for those of us outside the walled-garden of half eaten fruit, Fireworks is still a better option.

By Neil - 5:16 AM on May 9, 2013

Grow up. Real designers use Macs.

By Michelle - 9:12 PM on May 9, 2013

Grow up. Real designers design things using all skrts of tools.

By Bob - 11:16 PM on May 9, 2013

Neil, Real designers know how to use PC and MAC, right click much?

By paddy - 1:06 PM on May 10, 2013

really? are you kidding?

By AK-Mac - 6:16 PM on June 6, 2013

Bob, it’s “Mac” not “MAC”, that alone shows your level on competence when it comes to the Mac v PC debate… and right clicking? Yes, Mac’s can do that too… time to come out of that cave buddy…

By Jon - 5:07 PM on July 18, 2013

AK-Mac – It’s “Macs can do that too”…(Not “Mac’s”)

By Laura - 5:21 PM on August 6, 2013

Grow up. Real businesses sometimes prevent Macs from being used on their network for security reasons. Sometimes it isn’t a personal preference, it’s a business reason. Keep in mind that not everyone designing is a freelancer/small business who can choose whatever they want.

You have to be kidding! It seems like few Adobe people actually use these tools they sell. Good grief. One of these days, out of no where, Adobe will be eclipsed.

By Cathy Shapiro - 9:39 AM on May 7, 2013

Another huge mistake by Adobe! I too have used Fireworks since version 4! I can’t believe you are going to drop it. It’s the best software out there for web developers.
This announcement and the movement to the cloud are killing me. You are losing me as a customer. Period. I’m so disappointed in Adobe.

By Sha Razeek - 10:56 AM on May 7, 2013

I don’t work for a web dev agency or a graphic design studio. For an investment research firm like the one I work for Fireworks is the ideal piece of software. It has all the tools needed for quick prototyping, good image compression, quick HTML conversion for web sites and email. It allows us to accomplish quickly things that would otehrwise take a long time to do on Photoshop. That’s why we paid for a seperate Fireworks license. This is a terrible move by Adobe.

By Mark in SF - 9:51 AM on May 8, 2013

I don’t blame you. From a usefulness and usability perspective in interface design (not just web design specifically as asserted by Adobe above), Fireworks was their flagship product.

Well that is better…. For those who don’t know those “Focused” tools adobe is talking about
they are:
Adobe edge reflow
code
web fonts
animate
muse
And guess what. They are all free!!! (Except for muse.).

By Jelle - 5:26 AM on June 8, 2013

Trow it opensource, I say. So the community can update worlds best tool for prototyping UI, web, etc, etc

That’s like taking a precision rifle with long range scope away from a sniper, giving him a pistol with iron sights and telling him “don’t let the tool define your skill as a sniper.”

Great in theory, horrible in practice.

When it comes to precise design for Web and having the right blend of vector and bitmap tools with a (far) superior interface, Fireworks is a precision rifle. Adobe is taking it away and handing us pistols. A pistol is the right tool for police work, pursuits, etc., and Photoshop is a great tool for bitmap manipulation and basic 3D.

I cannot think of a single time I’ve encountered a designer who was *equally* fluent in both pieces of software and didn’t prefer Fireworks for Web layout. Unfortunately it’s rare to find designers who are equally proficient with both at an expert level. So when I make that statement, I’m basing it on maybe 50-100 designers.

This is a sad day.

By Kas - 2:29 PM on May 6, 2013

I agree with Tim. Fireworks is hands down *the* most efficient tool I have for web design comps. This is a major blow to my workflow.

I should clarify: I found a software CD for Fireworks v3 in my mom’s office when I was younger. It had a pretty illustration on the front and i was convinced it was a game. I installed and started playing around with it, started making my own graphics, started my own website, got into web design… etc.

I’m saying stumbling upon the Fireworks CD shaped the way I used computers and helped me become the UI/UX designer I am today.

This is a mistake. If you look at the users that use Fireworks, you will notices that they do not want all the fluff that comes with Apps like Photoshop or Illustrator. Fireworks was there for those of us who create web sites and web apps.

By foljs - 6:56 PM on May 6, 2013

Perhaps they looked at the users that use FW and they are not that many?

By Moi - 10:20 AM on May 10, 2013

There are 3 reasons for for why more people use Photoshop
– it took people 20 years to learn Photoshop and most people are too cowardly to change
– one Fireworks guru is worth 100 Photoshop sheep.
– most people are stupid

By Chris - 1:36 PM on July 24, 2013

True. Too many graphic designers, most in big agencies, works with Ps, Ai or — no joke — InDesign to design website. Well, web/app/UI/UX design is a bit different to static print canvas, but we can not afford that a graphic designer will understand it. So the reason why Fw is so “rare” is not the reason you may think.

-It’s horrible not update fireworks. It is a terrible tool, and you could make things even more integration with iCloud.
It’s a shame they did not think in Fireworks.
Many designers, developers in the world wants Fireworks.
This action by adobe, left thousands of disgruntled users and remote adobe brand. I include

No, that was ImageReady. They already had that walk of shame. I was actually proud of them for seeing the value in Macromedia’s superior software and replacing their own with it. That’s a big step for a company. This…I don’t know what to make of this.

Dear Adobe,
I purchased the creative cloud 5.5 and have been debating joining the creative cloud solely for Adobe Fireworks CS6.

I’m disappointed to see this decisions because I depend on Adobe FIreworks for my workflow. I have better tools to code my designs (Sublime Text & Coda), but Adobe Fireworks is the best tool around for allowing me to sketch out semi-realistic prototypes.

I’ve tried your newer tools from Reflow to Muse, but they clearly serve different purposes and I don’t see any professional designers adapting them as part of a successful workflow.

Dreamweaver is too bloated for a fast, responsive and iterative design in browser process. Once you understand how to use Fireworks, Photoshop seems archaic for web prototyping (though its a great photo editor). Illustrator is ok for web comps, but still pales in comparison to Fireworks.

Anyways, guess I just don’t see how this decision is about the customers since any designer that uses Adobe Fireworks is also a loyal and dedicated customer who may have invested a lot of time, money and training into using this tool as part of a professional workflow.

I know business is business, but you’ve got a one of a kind tool that helps a lot of people be creative. Don’t throw it away along with those customers aka web designers.

David your comment “Once you understand how to use Fireworks, Photoshop seems archaic for web prototyping (though its a great photo editor). Illustrator is ok for web comps, but still pales in comparison to Fireworks.” says it all… I’m sure the knuckle heads at Adobe who are taking these decisions haven’t used it to know the difference between them. Lets all join hands in petitioning Adobe to backtrack on this announcement ASAP.

By Cramer - 12:27 PM on May 6, 2013

I hate you Adobe. I miss the old Macromedia days.

By Gavin - 12:27 PM on May 6, 2013

They better do some serious upgrading to Photoshop and Illustrator to fill the gap, because although a majority of things could be done in Photoshop and Illustrator, it comes back to the best tool for the job. Photoshop is great, for what its good for, its like using a color’ed pencil to paint a building, sure you can do it, but its going to take forever… or like sculpting a statue with explosives, sometimes, its just not the best tool for the job.

I love fireworks, and use Ps and AI when they were relevant, but they weren’t the best for day to day web stuff…

That is soo sad. You could have made Fireworks THE app for Web Design just like you did for InDesign. Photoshop is a great app just not for Web Design. Just because you can design websites with Photoshop doesn’t mean you should. I can design websites with Microsoft Office too. This is a sad day for the web design world.

By Gregg Oldring - 12:29 PM on May 6, 2013

I am sad. Fireworks has always had fewer steps to the same results for me.

Well it’s not like you ever supported it anyways. Been buggy since Adobe took over from Macromedia. I’m still getting File Not Found errors when exporting in CS6…SO ANNOYING.

However, to expect us to switch to Photoshop is terrible. Needless to say I’ll be looking at alternatives. Fireworks was a simple, easy to use program for web interfaces that worked perfectly.

If you don’t continue to develop it, at least make Fireworks open source so the community can support its growth.

By David - 12:30 PM on May 6, 2013

Not very apply about this, I am probably going to give up using Adobe products altogether as it s so obvious thy do not care about the customers other than akin money! They rarely fix bugs and release upgrades at full price rather than help their customers. Goodbye Adobe, it as been a frustrating relationship.

By Pedro Abelino - 12:31 PM on May 6, 2013

Fireworks is the only Webdesign tool that meet all that i need in order to complete my tasks.It will be really sad for me and for the people that use it like me. I know that this is based on marketing and sales are all, Adobe should work on a FW version that containing unique features, different from all other CC software and focus on giving an image that distinguishes Fireworks and give it identity. Adobe Should not discontinue this beautiful software.

And how are you supposed to design web graphics with a text editor? Write RGBA codes one by one?

By Luiz Barros - 7:38 AM on May 7, 2013

Dear Erik, if you’re trying to make web graphics by pileing zeros and ones, there is a beautiful thing called a “woman”! Use Fireworks and will be more time to meet one.

By Ryan - 12:33 PM on May 6, 2013

Seems like Adobe really missed the ball on this one. Out of all the apps they have, Fireworks is the one that seems to fit in the most with where they are trying to go. I find it hard to believe they missed all the praise it has been getting over the last year or so as designers began moving towards it from Photoshop. It has become a very strong tool for pixel perfect web and especially mobile design. With a few simple upgrades they could have turned it into the best app in their arsenal, it could have been the go-to app for all mobile design. Sad sad day, for Fireworks and for Adobe as well.

By Amy - 5:58 AM on May 7, 2013

Maybe their engineers just couldn’t handle the code base, and they finally gave up?

By Roy Evans - 4:32 AM on June 28, 2013

Think you’ve hit the nail on the head here. I think Adobe are reluctant to see users switch from their flagship product to something that wasn’t even their own creation. By killing Fireworks, they also eliminate a potential threat to Photoshop.

By joseph reni - 12:33 PM on May 6, 2013

#FAIL – come on – was it that hard to support. It didn’t make you billions?

By Carlos - 12:34 PM on May 6, 2013

Ok, so I will abandon Adobe and use another tool from another company. I am already searching for it.

By Chad - 1:06 PM on May 6, 2013

I feel exactly the same way. Photoshop is not the alternative. If they have better “Save for Web” functionality in Indesign it would be killer.

By Erik B - 3:05 PM on May 6, 2013

You realize, saying that is like delivering a website comp to a client in PowerPoint. stop making excuses for not learning HTML and CSS. If you’re a web designer, get familiar with your design medium and learn some code!

By Stollz - 1:28 AM on May 7, 2013

Erm… what the h*ll are you talking about? I think you are at the wrong website.

By Toby - 3:16 AM on May 7, 2013

Don’t be so arrogant as to assume we can’t code. It’s inefficient for exploring concepts, particularly those which blend HTML elements with graphic backgrounds, overlays, etc. Exploring designs in a visual editor is just advanced sketching, it’s a natural step between pen & paper and code – and one which is far more flexible. Unless your idea of a web page is limited to text, coloured shapes and images in rectangles, you’ll need a graphic editor.

By Stephen - 12:34 PM on May 6, 2013

Finally Firework will be gone. Now us *real* designers don’t have to support fringe designers that have clung on to that archaic program. I hated getting fireworks files and trying to work with them.
Maybe you all can move to Corel now, lol.

@Stephen Why do you hate getting things done faster? A *real* website designer would never use Ps to begin with.

By Mike Boardley - 12:55 PM on May 6, 2013

WORD! Fireworks is better!

By Stephen - 1:01 PM on May 6, 2013

Part of me was just trolling a friend who was upset about this. 😉
It does suck for designers that will have to change their workflow (or stick with CS6) but this has been coming for a long time. Adobe never fully embraced FW.

By Stollz - 1:29 AM on May 7, 2013

That is true, it was like the adopted child and PS and AI were the “real” children

I would never force my FW files on any developer. I would always review the code for obvious stupidity (which there often was), before giving it and the image assets (where Fireworks REALLY shined) to the developers. It wasn’t a great code generator. There was plenty of room for improvement there, but it would let a designer rapidly produce their layouts, and output sliced, optimized assets. It was one great tool in the designer’s toolbox. Not the end-all be-all web development solution. Like any tool, it was how you use it that mattered.

Without Fireworks, developers may not like what kind of files they start getting from designers. It may be the full PSDs (if they’re lucky), or the designers might try slice the images in Photoshop with less than acceptable results. Time will tell, but I think the loss of Fireworks will probably result in slower development and deployment of sites in may environments. People will adjust and learn new workflows, but I think it’s a shame.

By Erik B - 3:12 PM on May 6, 2013

“real designers” know CSS and HTML. learn some code Mike, and then you wouldn’t have to review the code for the developers, and hey, you could even actually demonstrate the multiple states of that button w/o the use of images – and _that_ means there are no file formats that the dev would have to worry about, because ITS CODE.

By Amy - 6:01 AM on May 7, 2013

As a developer, I love getting Fireworks files and I’m not really thrilled about getting PSD’s. Of course, a lot of this stems from the fact that most designers have no clue what I do with the file and can’t structure it to be easy to work with.

If you have a Fireworks file, even if you can’t use anything in there directly (rare), you can at least see where things are positioned, what their sizes are, what colors were used, etc. You flat out can’t do these things in most psd’s.

This is an unbelievably sad day. I’ve been using Fireworks for like 8 years and it is the best graphics package that I’ve seen for web development. I used to use Photoshop (and ImageReady) before that and Fireworks was such a breadth of fresh air.

Fireworks was the *perfect* blend of Vector and Bitmap graphic tools. It dumped all the overhead that Photoshop had for “photo manipulation”; and, in its stead, delivered outstanding point-and-click tools.

This is a really really uninspired move. Fireworks has always had the upper hand over Photoshop and other tools when it comes to rapid prototyping/designing web sites, user interfaces and a lot of other things.

I use it for almost anything these days… logos, banners, ads, web design, graphic design. It’s just so much faster to create things in Fireworks than in Photoshop or Indesign, Illustrator, etc.

It’s one of the most productive tools for its purposes, period. I was hoping it would 64-bit support soon so it can handle larger files, not see it dead.

The smart people in the industry knew about it and been using it religiously. Others have been kidding themselves using other tools. But Adobe should have known better than all.

I hope Adobe will reconsider this, especially since there is no better alternative at this point. It’s not like Fireworks was taking too much dev time, since updates to Fireworks have been minimal/incremental at most over the years.

Adobe should keep Fireworks alive and striving until they have something solid to replace it, other than just the promises of future products.

Sad, very sad.

By Mark in SF - 9:56 AM on May 8, 2013

“Fireworks has always had the upper hand over Photoshop and other tools when it comes to rapid prototyping/designing web sites, user interfaces and a lot of other things.”

Yep; FW is simply more useful and usable than those other apps for most-to-all of the areas that these apps overlap.

By Sebastiaan Hemink - 12:38 PM on May 6, 2013

___________

By Gary - 12:40 PM on May 6, 2013

I hate you Adobe.
You’re killing Fireworks and your forcing people into a subscription with a cloud service that constantly goes down.

It should be brought to everyone’s attention, that if you buy a subscription for a full year and then are tight on money and decide you can’t afford the subscription, you shit out of luck as your application will no longer work. Nothing like paying $600/year for software you don’t own.

“We understand that Fireworks has one of the most passionate communities on the web” – No you clearly don’t. The funny thing is that you don’t even need to update this near perfect software, just fix the darn bugs.

This ultimately feels like a decision based on what Adobe wants the reality to be, not on what the reality is. Every day more people write about how useful they’re finding Fireworks and how it has only gotten better in the last few years. The appearance is that the customer base is increasing, not decreasing. I don’t expect Adobe to put as much effort into FW as they do PS, there are at least two partial markets using those and only one in FW. Adobe is likely the most self-competing company I know of, however. Edge is trying to replace Flash and Dreamweaver, Lightroom is fighting against PhotoShop, PS Edge, etc. FW is a specialized tool, and that’s the one that gets the axe? It just feels like a poor choice in refocusing efforts.

By Pieter - 12:41 PM on May 6, 2013

I’ve had a love-hate relationship with FW for the last 5 years. Can’t live (ie work) with it, can’t live without. You should’ve at least fixed the numerous bugs for your community. FW crashes at least once a day, but I have no idea how I’m supposed to do my high def (interaction) designs with any other tool. Adobe, this news is horrible! Guess I’ll have to do boring lofi wireframes from now on
RIP Adobe

Fireworks is part of my daily workflow as an iOS designer and developer, and gives me the ability to quickly put comps together in ways that Photoshop just wasn’t meant for. A truly awful call by Adobe. Sketch here I come.

pull _your_ head out of _your_ ass and learn how to deign for the web and not a flat file!

Yours,

random guy on the internet

By Cay Arcena - 10:34 AM on June 3, 2013

Web devoloping is WAY different from web design. You sound endlessly stupid. And being a troll doesn’t make you look cool nor smart. Fireworks is intended for VISUAL and what you are saying is coding or the structure behind the looks/design. Websites are like printers, it has the final result which is the fully printed poster (for example) or the web design while the ink from the printer is like the codes of the website.

By Mark in SF - 9:57 AM on May 8, 2013

If this comment got approved, why not mine?

By Catherine Winters - 12:45 PM on May 6, 2013

Dear Adobe: Can we buy Fireworks from you? Really. Alternatively, what about open-sourcing it?

(unfortunately this would probably result in a stable application, with a passionate user base that would cut into Photoshop sales)

By riki - 7:18 AM on May 10, 2013

No way. The whole idea is to get those who used Fireworks to buy other Adobe tools. So open source is not an option.

By Lenny - 10:58 PM on May 6, 2013

Open source Fireworks! #opensourcefireworks

By Hani Hassan - 4:56 AM on May 7, 2013

Good IDEA Catherine

By paddy - 1:41 PM on May 10, 2013

Do you think they can do that? Are you naive? They will kill it instead of releasing the tool to the public. For so many years Adobe’s main goal was squeeze our wallets as much as possible They are too greedy to release something for free

By Charlene - 3:52 PM on May 14, 2013

I agree sell to someone who will know how to use it and develop it right. Or make it open-source that way it will be free to developers who cater to Web design tools for developers and designers. They will totally make it a better product. So pissed with Adobe for leaving the users hanging.

By JD - 12:45 PM on May 6, 2013

Wow… Adobe just made web dev workflow more complicated than it needs to be? Did Adobe just show 3 or so new tools for making and designing websites? Why?

Will the new Photoshop CC be as easy to use as Fireworks was? If not, they truly do not care about workflow and the needs of their customers.

By Nate Steiner - 12:49 PM on May 6, 2013

I am excited about the future of Creative Cloud, but this news about the plans for Fireworks is dismaying and disruptive. Adobe has put those who use Fireworks into a semi-panic state unnecessarily. A better move would be to continue active development of Fireworks until a truly better set of tools and workflow have proven themselves in the market. In a word: disappointed.

By Stephen - 1:05 PM on May 6, 2013

It would never be good enough. This would always be a hard move for Adobe.

Stunned, Fireworks has always been my tool of choice, quicker to use in most scenarios for me than Photoshop ever would be and much more straight forward to get started with too. Disappointing is not the word, going to have to have a serious look at other viable options out there that have been emerging recently

Agree, Sketch are set to make a killing on this one… they already launched a 50% off offer (I for one bought the app)… I also got hold of Pixelmator for Mac. The two apps? Under NZ$50 for both!!! What does PS + FW cost again??? Shame on you Adobe…

By Marcelo Paiva - 12:56 PM on May 6, 2013

Adobe has been trying to kill FW since they acquired Macromedia, trying to force us to use the 800lb gorilla that PS is. If they could at least make either PS or Illustrator to work with pages and states, it would be a reasonable rationale to stop FW production. What Adobe needs to understand is that FW users would rather start using Keynote than waste our time turning layers on/off or swim over the ocean of art boards to get a simple storyboard done.

Instead of empty promises about updates and bug fixes (not a single one since Fireworks CS6 was released, which is pretty much just Fireworks CS5), why don’t you just open source it? It’s a tool many web designers depend on, and you haven’t done anything with it in years.

Photoshop is bloated and its workflow is still not great for web designers. All that Edge stuff is unpolished. Fireworks creates layered PNG files that open in almost any browser or image editor (flattened of course).

I don’t want to rent my software from you. Especially when the application I use most isn’t getting any attention.

By Andy - 3:59 AM on May 8, 2013

Layered pngs in browsers and apps sometimes break. It was never an official PNG feature. Fireworks layers are stored in the private chunks of the PNG files in a proprietary format which is not PNG.

Never understood why they did that in the first place.

As for renting software… why the heck not… it’s completely tax deductible that way… you have 2 licences on Mac or PC ( 3 floating ) and access to massive amounts of useful software ( but only if you need it of course! )

I use it for almost anything these days… logos, banners, ads, web design, graphic design. It’s just so much faster to create things in Fireworks than in Photoshop or Indesign, Illustrator, etc. This is a really really uninspired move. Fireworks has always had the upper hand over Photoshop and other tools when it comes to rapid prototyping/designing web sites, user interfaces and a lot of other things.

By Mariel Harding - 1:00 PM on May 6, 2013

I loved Fireworks! So many time-saving features (pages, states, symbols, etc.) for web design and unbeatable when it came to production. Seems almost like getting rid of InDesign and making people use illustrator instead.

By pbear - 6:16 PM on May 6, 2013

“Seems almost like getting rid of InDesign and making people use illustrator instead.”

DO NOT GIVE THEM ANY IDEAS!!!

… though, if they made InDesign as useful for web as Fireworks I would stop regretting I never got to figuring FW out! 😉

Agreed. It’s about using the right tools for the job. Adobe; the problem isn’t the tool, it was your inability to market it correctly. Now regretting the time I spent explaining the usefulness of Fireworks to my friends and colleagues.

I could design a site in Photoshop, or Layout a mag in Illustrator, but it’s not efficient. Hopefully “you” reconsider. Bummed that we converted our team to using Fireworks. Even with the bugginess you introduced after purchasing Macromedia, the plusses like pages and states made this tool worth using. I realize that there is overlap, but until there is a better option, it really doesn’t make sense to discontinue Fireworks.

Just fix the bugs in CS6 and no one would complain. Why? Because it’s perfect for fast prototyping and UI comps. No one cares about all the other stuff you produce. You clearly don’t get it at all as you are happily continuing Flash.

Photoshop isn’t for web design and adding rounded corners isn’t going to make it so.

A sad day. At least have the courtesy of making it open source.

By Stephen - 1:06 PM on May 6, 2013

Yet, if they discontinues flash there would be outcry too. I would dare argue that flash has at least, if not a bigger, market share than FW

By R H - 1:03 PM on May 6, 2013

The sad thing is, that if we get around to spending our 10,000 hours to master and love the new tools, how will we know that those won’t get discontinued as well? This makes it hard to trust the Adobe brand.
No wonder Steve Jobs fired you.

By Diego Vargas - 1:03 PM on May 6, 2013

Is this serious? Flash is dead, Dreamweaver is dead, but… Fireworks?! What a lack of vision, Fireworks is the only Adobe tool that is used today for web design and development!

@ Diego, you can say that again. No serious web designer would use Dreamweaver, only a madman would use Flash, but Fireworks is still the choice of many web designers. With some TLC, it could have been so much better as well.

By bustback - 1:04 PM on May 6, 2013

Fireworks was never a design-focused application and was largely relegated to producing content, not designing it. There were design tools but lacked a workflow that allowed creativity. It was made for making content and doing it fast. Anyone that thought it was a missing link to getting content to a production state is blind, it never made it easier for designers and developers to work together and had the same amount of effort as any other Adobe product (PS and AI, specifically).

If you used Fireworks, you were primarily producing workflows or many pages of a single design treatment solely for production purposes. Those that used it for web design really used it layout and, frankly, missed the design aspect in a serious manner.

All I hope is that Adobe focuses adding some simple features to Photoshop to enable better opportunities to make changes quickly that propagate to the rest of the design – resizing shapes in a non-linear way, better symbol support and Layer Comps that really will work like pages did. That’s really all Photoshop needs to excel for production work, and not just design.

By Skeku - 1:33 PM on May 6, 2013

[…]Those that used it for web design really used it layout and, frankly, missed the design aspect in a serious manner[…]

Are you saying web designers make bad designs while using FW instead other tools? You can’t be serious.

I work for a ‘serious’ digital agency and I use FW all day every day. You don’t know what you’re talking about.

By Ian - 5:37 PM on May 6, 2013

Haha, I love the fallacy of this attitude. I’ve worked at plenty of design agencies that have terrible workflows because of this attitude. Awkwardly trying to design sites in tools made for touching up photos.

Fireworks had a workflow that not only made designing and wireframing easier that Photoshop or Illustrator. It was far easier to iterate on designs, make client revisions, etc. all without ever having to do a single selection mask. It combined the best of bitmap editing with vector editing with a non-destructive effects stack. This made it possible to create style templates and presets.

And it’s web slicing was second to none. Every Photoshop agency I’ve worked at has their designers manually exporting slices half the time because Photoshops slice tools are so inadequate. Photoshop has no “pages” metaphor for isolating artwork. Fireworks had layer groups since the beginning, symbols (aka: smart objects) since the beginning and interactive gradients beyond just “linear” and “radial”…to name a few.

Fireworks destroyed both Photoshop and Illustrator when it came to web design.

By Andy - 4:15 AM on May 8, 2013

Destroyed = past… and that the point. FW is 32 bit only and would have needed a complete re-write to stay competitive – it would be impossible to build in Graphics card support for example as it is now.

That said… all your statements are past tense. They have not killed FW – just not updating it for the moment. Pretty much the same as Director – Who even knew this still existed let alone had a major update this year! http://www.adobe.com/products/director.html

I know there are some missing FW features in PS… but it’s clear they are porting that stuff over. I used to love FW but have switched…

Most of the things “I” used are covered in PS now and some are a lot better. But totally understand everyones points of view, it’s damn annoying when you favourite software gets sidelined and no-one gets how this is going to affect YOUR workflow.

The new creative cloud stuff for clients looks incredible – set a file to be on the Cloud and it will look after iterations, revisions – allow clients to view a file if you let them on a browser via a passworded link. – where they can comment etc. They don’t need PS to open it etc.

By Digitalus - 7:24 PM on May 6, 2013

Wow, what a ridiculous and arrogant thing to say!

Even though talent isn’t and shouldn’t be bound to a single application, there’s a lot to be said for an application that fits its purpose so well that it becomes one of the single most useful tool a designer can use.

It is common knowledge that both Photoshop and Illustrator are almost perfect for their purposes –photo editing & print design– but Fireworks brought the best of those two applications and combined it into a single digital design solution with a lot of promise which Adobe flagrantly squandered.

To say that no serious design agency would ever use FW is simply closed-minded d-baggery at its finest. Not only did you disparage the creative talent shown by fellow designers, but with that sweeping statement you totally invalidated and ignored some amazing individuals producing incredible work using FW, simply because they understood that they didn’t have to put up with ill-fitting applications, and actually had the balls and ability to work with a product that doesn’t overcomplicate tasks and was designed to be better rather than bigger.

Perhaps you like using bloated applications that you have to bend to your will to accomplish your design visions, and that’s all well and good for you, but there are other people around who want to use a tool that works for them and what they do and Fireworks became that tool.
You don’t have to like it, but don’t act like such a d-bag.

By Thiago Viana - 4:38 AM on May 7, 2013

Stupid comment.

By ad - 1:30 AM on May 7, 2013

“Those that used it for web design really used it layout and, frankly, missed the design aspect in a serious manner.” – LOL WHAT?

If you can create a good design in Photoshop, then you can do the same in Illustrator, Fireworks or Sketch. If not this is not an application issue. Fireworks have it’s own unique workflow that helps to create whole process of screen design from layouts to final product much easier that any application ever.

By Michael Clawson - 1:05 PM on May 6, 2013

While I’m very sad about this day, I suppose the writing has been on the wall for some time. In a perfect world, I would love to see FW continue to evolve. But, I understand, nothing lasts forever.

Might I add a request to this plan, Adobe? Since we will have access to Fireworks CS6 for a some time on the CC, can you (or maybe the development community) make a plug-in for Photoshop and/or Illustrator to be able to at least read and/or translate a Layered Fireworks file? I’m not asking for a seamless translation, because, I know that could never happen. Fireworks is Fireworks! But, it would just be nice to have the ability to convert old files to the new workflow once the day comes when we will no longer be able to launch Fireworks on our desktop.

Thanks for listening.

By Seth - 1:06 PM on May 6, 2013

This is terrible news. You are effectively killing off THE ONLY web design tool you have, Adobe. Overlap? Seems like a cheap and easy excuse to me. I will now begin my search for a non Adobe web design tool.

By Esteban - 1:07 PM on May 6, 2013

Bad news. Fireworks is the tool for web / interface designers. I would like to know the real reasons why this software will be no longer any more.

By blatanville - 1:08 PM on May 6, 2013

oy + vey…

I’ve really been getting into fireworks in the last two years, and now you pull the plug?
Adobe, you make yourself hard to defend…

I’m lost for words. Did anyone at Adobe do any type or research and talk with designers that use Fireworks? I do NOT see these so called overlap features in Photoshop. Photoshop has NO pages and NO masters to easily flush out a complete app design within one png. I can’t share layers to pages… I can go on and on with what makes FW awesome. Oh but wait…. Photoshop added this incredible new feature by making the designer manually label an asset .jpg or .png to easily export. FW is able to do that and has for a long time. I’m not just upset about this I am really pissed off. For years I’ve been using FW I also worked with the Macromedia team before Adobe acquired them. I also worked for Adobe. Each and every company I worked for I would convert the team over to use FW. I’ve been a strong supporter of this app for many years. Photoshop is awesome for a lot of things just not when it comes to designing web sites, Applications (flex etc), Mobile.

By mIIo - 1:11 PM on May 6, 2013

With programs such as the Edge series, web content is becoming monotonous and boring. For innovative websites and applications FW was the ideal instrument. It’s a shame!

This is truly a sad day for the Fireworks community. Unfortunately for Adobe, it will be outside vendors who come in to fill this new gap you’ve created. Separating tasks out in to multiple programs seems to be the opposite mentality you’ve always had in creating robust programs for doing big tasks easier.

I will admit, in the beginning I could not code. And when I did, it took forever. FW, was a tool which gave me an edge to create quick mock-ups, export images (just like today’s Photoshop CC demo) even export out the HTML and CSS to give me quick code to go by. Most of all the Plug-In’s from Specctr, John Dunning and others have helped me tremendously keep afloat in the job market by creating designs that the developers can go by. I hope Adobe does see that even though we may be fewer users then Photoshop, we’re more intouch with Web Development. Keep FW alive!

By gabi - 1:17 PM on May 6, 2013

Been in web design for about 13 years now. Always used FW, no exception. You must have been fallen right on your heads to make such a decision. I don’t have enough words to describe it.You should be ashamed if this become a reality.

While Sketch is the most similar non Adobe, Fireworks alternative it is still million miles away from the features of Fireworks, and ultimately will never be feasible for commercial designers since unless you live in a bubble you need to open Photoshop Files and Save as Photoshop Files to send to coders if you are simply the designer. And while fireworks can open ps files and save as ps, Sketch will never be able to do either.

Fireworks or Photoshop don’t change the quality of the final work.
But now, we can lose production time with Photoshop.

By graham hamand - 1:21 PM on May 6, 2013

well after all these years of using fireworks ,and the numerous dollars spent on upgrading to new CS platforms,i want my money back adobe you’re out of line,

you can’t sell a product and then take away support or updates for it

not a happy bunny at all

By Peter - 1:21 PM on May 6, 2013

“We will provide security updates as necessary and may provide bug fixes.”
Yeah about that… Judging from the Fireworks CS history I don’t think we’re going to see a single update.

By agro - 1:21 PM on May 6, 2013

I’m totally disappointed. Its a step back, instead of pushing fireworks they just let it die. Although it was buggy and crashing all the time, it had by far the better workflow for wireframing and designing. Spent a lot of time creating commands and extensions to customise it to my needs. Pages and states organisation was a charm. Photoshop layers organisation is leading to a mess sooner or later. Switching from illustrator to PS to import vectors is like working out of the context and is disrupting the workflow.
I really had the impression loads of people in the design industry (web and mobile) switched to fw in recent years. Maybe I’m wrong, maybe adobe does not care. I’m going to switch to bohemiancoding sketch. Keep on bloating ephemera!

Photoshop is a lumbering wreck of an app – trying to be all things to all men, even more so now than when Fireworks was first conceived. You had a huge lead on apps like “Sketch” with Fireworks and you go and blow it.

Wow, good thing i didnt switch to FW. Man are there a lot of upset people or what? I’d just recommend switching to indesign at this point. Its fairly similar, and, in my opinion, even better tool for web/moblie/ui design. Just gotta learn the right workflow.

By Dennis - 1:22 PM on May 6, 2013

What a silly and dumb decision, because FW is the only real professional tool in the portfolio for designing websites. Al my workflow is set around this tool. Theres no reason to use DW, most Editors are much better, Edge Animate is just a toy, producing much to large files. Reflow? Better use a browser window. I cant see tools which will replace FW at all. It would cost almost no resourses to further develop this tool, its already there!

Not sure you knew what you where doing, guys…

By Dave Cronin - 1:23 PM on May 6, 2013

So sad. By far the best tool for pixel-based design. If you think Photoshop and Illustrator are good replacements, you have no idea what we do.

By Dan Glennword - 1:23 PM on May 6, 2013

One step forward, ten steps back. Just when it seemed Adobe was moving into the web, they kill the one web based tool that web designers use.

I’d been debating going down to Adobe Max, but so glad I didn’t. That would have been like going to a Radiohead concert only to be told Thom was no longer in the band.

These big companies think consumers just don’t like change, but designers and developers are constantly having to embrace change. This isn’t about that. If Adobe were to use their own tools they would know adding rounded corners to photoshop is sort of missing the point of why Fireworks excels where Photoshop fails.

By Charlene - 5:07 PM on May 14, 2013

I would not worry too much about it. As the saying goes “someone else will ways make something better.” Adobe might be on top now but somebody else will come along with something better. So some where down the line FW will be reinvented by some other company that will value what is it is really used for. Developers are always looking for a challenge. I am quite sure a developer is already doing something like FW or better. Do not be surprised if in the next few months a product like FW be on the market. Be ready to jump when they do.

Coming from an interactive designer who works at a Fireworks-based agency: This is absolutely delusional. Dreamweaver is beyond useless at this point, but that is getting the CC treatment?!

Photoshop is not a good enough web layout tool, plain and simple. Adobe, please PLEASE get your collective head on straight here. You have now sparked a web shop discussing how we can abandon Adobe all together, and I’m sure others are following suit.

’m lost for words. Did anyone at Adobe do any type or research and talk with designers that use Fireworks? I do NOT see these so called overlap features in Photoshop. Photoshop has NO pages and NO masters to easily flush out a complete app design within one png. I can’t share layers to pages… I can go on and on with what makes FW awesome. Oh but wait…. Photoshop added this incredible new feature by making the designer manually label an asset .jpg or .png to easily export. FW is able to do that and has for a long time. I’m not just upset about this I am really pissed off. For years I’ve been using FW I also worked with the Macromedia team before Adobe acquired them. I also worked for Adobe. Each and every company I worked for I would convert the team over to use FW. I’ve been a strong supporter of this app for many years. Photoshop is awesome for a lot of things just not when it comes to designing web sites, Applications (flex etc), Mobile.

By Farbod Kokabi - 1:29 PM on May 6, 2013

If Veronica Mars is worth bringing back via Kickstarter, Fireworks is a no brainer.

By Dennis - 1:30 PM on May 6, 2013

Can I ask which tool Adobe recommends to use for webdesign now?

By Stollz - 1:46 AM on May 7, 2013

The one which will make you pay them enormous amounts of money over a year and still have crap productivity

Ok. Well at least finally the cat’s out of the bag. I’m so f*in fed up with working with a tool that’s less stable than a house of cards in a winterstorm. Adobe started killing Fireworks from the day they took over Macromedia by outsourcing the development to a 5 man team in India with no quality control or testing before releases.
I love Fireworks. Always have and it hurts me to have experienced the slow death of it.
The software has become a horribly mangled cripple and lately I’m often more surprised when it doesn’t crash than when it does. It has truly become unworkable and I was already preparing to start using Photoshop.

I can only pray Adobe will provide a new way to use shared layers, symbols and pages in Photoshop and that vector work will become easier in Photoshop or that it will extend more seamless to Illustrator.

Another dream I have is that some fresh startup will create the alternative and blows Adobe out of the water like they their selves did with Quark. It would be very very well deserved!

I’d love to see Fireworks death mean a more robust, web ready InDesign. I tend to use it for laying out website mockups because I’ve never really liked Fireworks and Photoshop for web layouts is a joke. Fireworks always felt like the weird b@stard child of Flash and Dreamweaver.

By Carrie WIley - 1:32 PM on May 6, 2013

I’ve used Fireworks for over 10 years. I have turned MANY other designers onto it. It’s is HANDS-DOWN the best software for creating designs that need to use both vector and bitmap images and heavy use of type. I cannot believe this is even an option for Adobe. Please someone, save Fireworks!

This is a completely myopic bean-counter decision made by people who don’t actually design websites, web apps, or iOS apps. The executive bozos making the choice to kill Fireworks are out of touch and incompetent. Fireworks is a hyper efficient prototyping and production tool that could have been even more amazing. Adobe is so oriented around that fat pig Photoshop that they couldn’t see what they have in Fireworks (or maybe there’s just the same pervasive territorial product politics playing out at Adobe, a crusty old Silicon Valley company). Unbelievable.

Fireworks has become a key application in our web development process. In my opinion, it is superior to all other CS apps combined when it comes to web layout and design. Fireworks provides solutions to real-world web design that simply don’t exist in Photoshop or Illustrator.

I wish you would reconsider.

By Brian Peat - 1:41 PM on May 6, 2013

If you can make PSD open Fireworks files 100% correctly, and add a function to switch to “Fireworks Mode” so the layering is done the way it is in FW, then I might consider using it. Until then, I’ll stick with FW CS6 till it dies and then switch to Sketch. Heck, I may even switch to Acorn or some other photo app and cancel my CS6 subscription. I don’t do print any more, so Fireworks is my main app followed by PSD and then Illustrator.

This is just a BAD decision all around.

By Magnus Gyllensward - 1:43 PM on May 6, 2013

This is ridiculous. Shame on Adobe.

FW has always been THE digital graphics program. “increasing amount of overlap in the functionality” is nonsense since FW excelled with its direct interface, letting you work directly with the artwork and not forcing you to keep track of things such as layer naming locked layers and tools that are not relevant for digital graphics.

PS is a PHOTO editing tool and a dinosaur that has grown out of proportion. It lacks the agility and speed of FW and this just shows that Adobe doesn’t know what they are doing.

If they really don’t believe in FW, they should let it go to open source or at least sell it to someone who can take it further.

There is no way I am going back to PS, Illustrator or InDesign for web/digital work. If this really is the end of FW I’ll do my best to stay away from Adobe and try to use apps such as Sketch 2 instead (looks somewhat promising but not nearly as complete as FW).

By Ryan Krause - 1:43 PM on May 6, 2013

Fireworks is buggy and frustrating.. works about 90% of the time flawlessly, the other 10% is when all my work dissapears or errors out. I too would like to know what kind of options we’re looking at for replacement. Fireworks is hands down the best tool for slicing images and png’s. The difference between a fireworks-sliced site and photoshop-sliced is night and day. Show me a comparable tool to the feature-set of Fireworks and i’ll switch right over.

Thanks for giving us the heads up. Now I can start looking for alternatives before its too late.

By Keith - 1:44 PM on May 6, 2013

Key Fireworks features are NOT present in Photoshop or Indesign. UI designers need pages and states, rich symbols, etc. Only bright spot is now we’re freed up to leave Adobe since there’s no new FW on the horizon. It was neglected anyway. Anyone try Antetype?

With the killing of FW I am struck with the question of why I subscribe to Creative Cloud. I only used FW, PS (for editing images) and LR. The price doesn’t make sense for just two products. This is ridiculous. #rip

Speechless… How disappointed I am right now! All my life as designer & developer based on Fireworks to end up like this!

By Christian - 1:48 PM on May 6, 2013

I am so angry with Adobe that I can barely keep my harsh opinions to myself.

Photoshop and Illustrator and the other useless Adobe (more modular) tools DO NOT compare to Fireworks. Just like HTML 5 still to this day falls way short of what can be done in Flex.

Adobe is sooooooooooooooo out of touch with designers (and developers). Case and point, our Fireworks user group that meets at the Adobe building in SF has grown to be 1400 members strong. I don’t know of any other group with these kind of numbers. Especially considering that a year ago we had less than 100. Maybe just maybe they should have kept listening to us so they could REALLY BE IN-TOUCH with their customers.

STUPID!

Funny thing is Adobe’s CEO started Max by telling a story of how his son uses Photoshop, Lightroom and Illustrator and how he complains to his dad that the tools are not fast enough. Other than the memory limitation of Fireworks, it is an EXTREMELY FAST tool. Why because it is intuitive and because it works the way designers think. Because it is flexible, and extendible.

While the other Adobe apps are slowly (key word) starting to become more like Fireworks, they are still not their. But I should point out that FW has had vector masking, and live effects for ever. So while you see these great new features in Photoshop CS6 where the user can control effects with vector mask… we have had them for so long that we are not impressed.

Ugh! BIG MISTAKE ADOBE…. BIG MISTAKE!

Really, do you really think you can do iteration design using Photoshop or Illustrator? Do you really think you can layout an iteration using these tools. HERE IS MY CHALLENGE. I dare any Adobe employee, or any Adobe evangelist to design faster than I can using any combinations of their other tools.

SOOOOOOOO SAD!

By Wim Hovens - 2:57 PM on May 15, 2013

What he said.

you are introducing tools and features as “new” that we already had years ago, that you took away from us when you squashed Macromedia… and have never been able to re-implement into adobe products anywhere near as good as they were in the first place…

Fireworks is so awesome because it’s the thing you changed the LEAST when you got Macromedia… it’s fast, intuitive, and by far the best product you have left…

By Josh - 1:49 PM on May 6, 2013

Seems reminiscent of Netflix’s bad decision to split into two companies. At least they listened and continue to be a thriving company because of it:

Ass backwards business. Everyday on twitter I hear of people using FW for the first time and loving it. I hope adobe doesn’t assume they will all go out and spend twice as much on a product like PS that takes twice as long to use for web design. Sucks.

This is a sad day indeed. I did take a look at some of the new features for Photoshop but like others were saying it still comes up short in object based design, pages, states, slicing, optimization etc etc. Fireworks you will be missed

I agree that Fireworks CS6 is buggy and has been even through out the Pre Release beta program. I’ve installed an auto save over ride extension to help reduce the risk of lost and corrupted files. Adobe should never of released that latest build to the public without a plan to resolve these issues.

I use Photoshop for multiple types of projects. Just not anything interactive / app / mobile. I use Illustrator for logos and iconography and large scale vector illustrations and billboards. I use InDesign and other Adobe products. Each for a certain reason. Killing FW with a total bullshit “amount of overlap in the functionality” reason IMO makes no sense.

By Katherine Long - 1:59 PM on May 6, 2013

Why fireworks, there are bazillion other products Adobe could’ve killed. This is a stupid decision.

By Tim Kelleher - 2:04 PM on May 6, 2013

So long good friend, thanks for all the crashes.

By Pascal Assaleh - 2:06 PM on May 6, 2013

Fireworks > Photoshop

Fireworks has been the greatest tool for designing websites, apps, and UI. Fireworks’ work flow and tools are far superior to those of photoshop. Photoshop is made for photo editing not creating user interfaces.

Fireworks remains the ONLY tool that does what it does — efficiently filling the visual prototyping space between our favorite artwork manipulating tools (Photoshop, Illustrator, etc) and the front-end build cycle.

Adobe — please continue to push the envelope with the new Edge suite and encourage live prototyping of mocks as code, while supporting the interoperability of your product suite …

… but ALSO retain and fully support the one tool that best supports this visual-interactive workflow — and promises many years of continued, dramatic market growth.

By Gareth - 2:07 PM on May 6, 2013

A sad day for interaction designers: As an ex-Photoshop and Illustrator sufferer, Fw has been my tool of choice for 5+ years now. I hope that something else comes along that equals it’s efficiency and suitability-for-purpose before Adobe finally pulls the plug.

By josh - 2:10 PM on May 6, 2013

I have to say I could see this coming for years. Little to zero updates and poor support.

Honestly I’d be much more understanding of this decision by Adobe if you actually had “a” product that matched the utility of Fireworks for web design and layout. Saying one is coming or that Photoshop or Illustrator are acceptable fallbacks shows your lack of understanding for the toolset.

Seriously…Adobe, this is akin to canceling InDesign for print designers. Photoshop is not a tool for web layouts and organizing page driven designs and nor is Illustrator.

Why would I pay for three things when I can pay for one thing that does exactly the job I need it to do and let’s me get the exact output in the way I want in the perfect workflow and UX.

It’s not like you ever added any useful features. It’s near perfect already, all it needs is proper bug fixing that you never gave it. Release the MX 2004 source code, I propose.

By Andriy Zvirko - 2:19 PM on May 6, 2013

It’s time to sell this great product to another company.

By Diego - 2:19 PM on May 6, 2013

It was the best tool you had, and instead of give it more attention you’ve killed and will launch 10 shitty “complementary” apps nobody is gonna use. Fireworks worked.

By Oscar - 2:21 PM on May 6, 2013

Just want to add my thoughts to this debate.

As many point out, Fireworks is a tool and it does not make you a designer. However as a tool it makes our work as designers more efficient and enables us to more rapidly iterate designs.

I’ve always felt it combines the best of vector and raster in one package without trying to do everything. If I need more complex image retouching, I do it PS and then import or if I need to do some simple 3D vector work I may use Ai the import that. And for web icons, anything Ai can create, FW can.

As someone who regularly works with freelancers who only use PS, I’m always amazed at how long it takes them to create simple layouts because PS is not designer to deal with vector files efficiently. But at the same time, they swear PS is the best tool for web design.

I will keep using Fireworks for a while longer (and forgive the crashes) but not sure I will move onto other Adobe software for the same design requirements – I suspect, as many others are already doing, I will be working more closely with the development team and use other emerging apps that fill the gap.

As a footnote, some of the features that to me demonstrate its flexibility include:
– Use anything to mask anything in one click. And if I want complex and editable masks with transparency, it’s the same process.
– Having multiple pages in the document is perfect for: duplicating and creating design iterations, developing different page/UX layouts for a project, linking components etc
– Being able to select multiple vector points in the layouts by simply click dragging over the ones I want and then adjusting – try doing that in PS.
– Selecting X number of shapes in a layout on any layer whether vector or raster and copying/moving/deleting/changing colour etc etc – why is this so hard in PS?
– Colour gradients are so easy in FW – so easy I always wonder why this approach was not introduced in Ai and PS.

By quink - 3:36 PM on May 6, 2013

Except that in Fireworks, it is possible to do pixel perfect vector editing. Pixel perfect vector editing.

It’s mind-blowing for web design. Not UX or interaction or the stuff CSS3 should be used for, bit everything else.

There is nothing out there that does pixel perfect vector design to even an order of magnitude as well as Fireworks.

From infographics for the web to icons to mockups to composition of vector and raster elements. Pixel perfect vector editing is important. And neither Illustrator or Photoshop nor a combination can do it as well as Fireworks by large margin.

By Justin - 2:23 PM on May 6, 2013

I’ve been using Fireworks since CS and it has only gotten better and better. It’ still the best and quickest tool for web design. It’s like Photoshop and Illustrator rolled into one minus the bloat. This is the one program from Adobe that I did not mind paying for. I would rethink this idea Adobe.

By matthijs - 2:24 PM on May 6, 2013

So, exactly which other ‘overlapping’ Adobe application lets me create entire website with pages, layers, states and symbols that can change all the copies of a (nine sliced) button in the entire site, or let me scale up an entire design from normal ipad to retina resolution in one minute?

Well, that just about seals the end of my time on the Adobe upgrade path. With the death of Flash / Flash Builder and now the killing off of my favourite Adobe app, I have really no reason to continue. It was just a wonderful tool for web design – that perfect zone between Illustrator and Photoshop that neither of the two applications – nor both combined – could touch. Sad day for me – goodbye Adobe…

So Adobe kills the only product of theirs I use on a daily basis. That’s nice.

By Joost - 2:34 PM on May 6, 2013

This is very, very sad. When someday Fireworks will be dropped from CS I will stop updating.

Fireworks is a great, fast an versatile tool for web professionals. Better drop support for Dreamweaver which is a tool for web hobbyists and derserves much less of a place in a high end package like CS.

Fireworks really is the only tool on the market right now that can handle web design in its truest nature letting designers build large and pixel precise mockups really fast. But having a quick look at Muse today I see a potential that combining the new features of Muse (which is already taking a move towards being the InDesign of web) with Fireworks vector handling, masking etc would make a most awesome software. If only they could see this…

Oh no….. fireworks is the only tool i use for web design, it is (or was) the fastest tool to create pixel perfect designs with an easy slice tool if they keep with this, CS6 is the my last adobe product.

By Mark - 2:40 PM on May 6, 2013

As a UX professional and manager with 15 years experience I can say this is very bad news for the overall productivity of design teams. Fireworks has been the exclusive tool for me and my teams for years now. It is the right tool for UI. Fast, fluid and with a vastly superior model for organizing elements than that of Photoshop. I urge you to reconsider. There clearly is a market here.

By Thomas - 2:41 PM on May 6, 2013

A very sad day for Adobe’s web design customers. Photoshop and Illustrator are just not up to the same level of efficient workflow.

Please just make sure I can open my layered Fireworks files *perfectly* in Photoshop before you ditch me. I have 15 years of layered PNGs that I would prefer not to rebuild in whatever tool you claim does everything FW does. Please consider finding a better home for it!

By Mark Dowman - 11:16 AM on June 6, 2013

Agreed. I’ve got files dating back to 1999. Opening them flat in Photoshop destroys them. Converting them all over to Illustrator is a mess too.

What I love about Fireworks, is that it is the right level of control for the job. Photoshop and Illustrator have the “747 cockpit” of controls to do anything. Well I don’t need a 747 for everything. Fireworks is my “Cesna”, with only the controls I need. It is light (relatively) and maneuverable for basic jobs.

Please strongly consider selling the tool (Kickstarter campaign? Corel?) or making full file format support in Illustrator and Photoshop.

By Benjamin L. - 2:49 PM on May 6, 2013

Shame on you. You never understood this product. So you prefer to kill. It’s ridiculous.

By Jules - 2:50 PM on May 6, 2013

This is a sad sad day indeed.

There’s nothing like the speed of using Fireworks, and I used to use Photoshop so I know how difficult it is to dig through folders and groups and layers just to edit a simple item. Vector support sux, and it’s a tool that was never designed for web graphics.

I think the design community should crowdfund the purchase of Fireworks and improve it and continue its legacy!

By rachid ahitass - 2:52 PM on May 6, 2013

Sad day, after first Golive wich was a very good tools to me now it’s fireworks time, really, really sorry about this news.

By Peter Traskalik - 2:57 PM on May 6, 2013

This is “no good” – i use fireworks since 1998 and can’t imagine my work without it. I seriously try Photoshop once a year, but it is just a complex bloated piece of junk compared to FW.

The only hope: some clever guy starts coding a new App right now and I’ll buy it on the App Store ASAP. Hope there is soon more competition so i can abandon Adobe products at all.

By theoldguy - 2:59 PM on May 6, 2013

Why don’t you improve it instead of dumping it from a day to another,

And does this mean that the all “ex-macromedia” products like flash, freehand(whoops) are going to die?

By Kip - 3:00 PM on May 6, 2013

Does anyone at Adobe even use Fireworks? If they did, I think they’d realize the huge hole that will be left by abandoning it. This is just sad. Time to look more closely at competitors, I suppose.

By SunnyP - 3:00 PM on May 6, 2013

Nice move Adobe. Did you hire Ron Johnson for this decision?

By Drew - 3:03 PM on May 6, 2013

This decision clearly isn’t about the customers, but I’d be curious if Adobe could explain from a more honest business perspective how this decision makes sense. They are investing in programs that I don’t see anybody very passionate about while cutting software that has many dedicated fan sites.

I really wanted to like the Edge products, but they just don’t fit smoothly into a web design workflow. Fireworks has been the main reason I have continued to support and advocate for Adobe over the years.

Hope you at least open source it, so this tool can continue to help the design community. Using photoshop for web design feels like using a hammer to floss my teeth, not gonna do it.

You know? I knew this would happen someday since you bought the superb Macromedia company.

By Duluoz - 3:06 PM on May 6, 2013

I’m sorry, but reading these comments, I would find it hard to work with ‘designers’ that feel their fickleness to a dying inefficient piece of software holds such great a value as to tantrum at the news of Adobe’s lack of further development.

I’m glad Adobe is starting to head in the right direction with their applications. However I feel these new tools are only a stepping stone to the eventual death of web application development from Adobe.

If I were Adobe, I would have abandoned Dreamweaver, Flash, and Fireworks years ago. They were short term cash cows that may be funding long term ambitions; but the end goal is never proselytized in a cohesive manor.

There have become two worlds of web ‘professionals’ – those that rely on ‘tools’ to do the work for them, and those who do the work necessary to output optimal and professional results regardless the tools.

The fickle screams from the Fireworks community is worth ignoring if Adobe’s goals are to support a more professional community that is not crippled.

By k - 4:38 PM on May 6, 2013

What are you talking about man? What does this mean? That I have to code my designs? Do you not see how much slower this process is to come to a result that you present the client. Redoing design in code is much time consuming for any developer, even the super mega fast ones than doing new mockups in Fireworks. Yes you can do it also fast in Photoshop… but that does not work for site designs that consist of more than just one or two pageviews.

Give Fireworks to the guys who are building Muse in Adobe and let them combine these softwares into one ultimate workflow that allows to be creative and also build highly interactive mockups.

By Duluoz - 6:18 AM on May 7, 2013

I stand by my comments and disagree that a Fireworks workflow is the most efficient. That sentiment is only true to inexperienced developers. Push yourself even a little to let go of it and design in the browser, sharpen your coding skills even a small amount, and have your eyes opened.

By Ozgur - 10:16 AM on May 7, 2013

Duluoz, my friend,

Fireworks’ primary user segments is UX/UI designers not for web developers :)))) Are you sure that you know the app? Fireworks is not a tool for coding web sites via drag&drop.

Clear????

By dooofus - 2:48 PM on May 7, 2013

Umm. Fireworks is mainly for graphics. Not sure how you would “code” animated GIFs.

I do know that making web ads and graphics in Photoshop is tedious compared to Fireworks though.

By Nando - 2:41 AM on July 18, 2013

I am not a web designer. You think you know but you are just another snob pretentious web coder mix whatever designer opening his mouth to talk gibberish about things he has no idea about.

I am not web designer, I am vector artist and UI designer.

By Ed G - 3:09 PM on May 6, 2013

Very sad and distressing news. The Fireworks workflow for creating comps and designs for web and software applications was vastly superior to Photoshop. Fireworks was the best tool for my workflow and it will be greatly missed.

Photoshop is a great image manipulation program, which is why I assume it was called PHOTOshop. But for web layout work Fireworks was far superior.

By Rob - 3:11 PM on May 6, 2013

Soon I will have no reason to use Adobe products at all. I loathe this company with a burning passion.

By Julieta - 3:14 PM on May 6, 2013

Worst decision ever. You will loose many customers, me included.

By Hammad - 3:15 PM on May 6, 2013

Photoshop was never built to make websites, its in name “PHOTOshop” use it for photo editing guys… you killed a Web Designing tool and added Web Designing functionality to a PHOTO editing tool…
I curs Macromedia to be sold to Adobe today.. Macromedia we’ll never forgive you

Fireworks is an amazing tool for the web. Adobe never seemed to care about it, even as it’s popularity has been growing. I always wished a different company would make a similar product. Hopefully now, someone will create a better more stable Fireworks type application.

There are some really great comments here that totally show why people prefer Fireworks to Photoshop or other tools for the purposes of web design, user interface design,etc. and that also show why this decision is just bad.

I hope these comments will at least get to Adobe’s ear and they take a few moments to think about it.

Photoshop is too slow and bloated to do what Fireworks does. Fireworks does overlap somethings Illustrator and Photoshop does, but its a very useful tool. Dumping Fireworks is a bad decision, people are working towards designing in the browser and Fireworks allows for a faster way to build sites. Fireworks needed live imports and some other things to really shine.

By peter kubin - 3:34 PM on May 6, 2013

since you adobe seem to be too big to fail, you seem to be able to ignore your customers in total. – and this makes me really bitter, since i helped to make you who you are… buying your products for the last 15 years.

i do not care, if you develop one stupid little software experiment after the other with all the money you charge for your overpriced non-innovating software tankers like photoshop and illustrator… but the real winner, that is supporting the workflow of the people who are serious about making interface design and not photoshop-posters… you let it die without any worthy alternative?… for no reason?… why?… because the code is hard to or impossible to refactor?… then make the effort and write it new, dammit… we are willing to pay you for this… do you listen?

please do and reconsider!… and if it would only be for the reason not to discourage loyal customers who will otherwise flame you until eternity… which is a promise not a threat… ;¬}

By Darryl - 3:35 PM on May 6, 2013

Adobe, you don’t get it – neither Photoshop (bloated, awkward), Illustrator (not for pixels), nor Edge suite products (too lite) do anything like what Fireworks did. Sure, FW was a performance turd. But it was a proper pro tool for web designers. Once you tried FW you never went back to PS.

By Grant - 3:41 PM on May 6, 2013

What disappoints me is that in this release they don’t express any signs that the have a vision for a great web/interface design experience. They just expect us to cobble it together with an array of other tools. Adobe, can’t you see that interface design is (or soon will be) a way bigger market than photo retouching or illustration?

The masses are crying out for a comprehensive, fast, workflow-friendly interface design app.

By Pablo - 3:47 PM on May 6, 2013

This is a mistake…. You cant finish FW! PS sucks for web & UX design…

By Chris P - 3:48 PM on May 6, 2013

Welcome to the club fireworks users! That’s the club of ex Adobe software purchasers and Flex developers (open sourced or not Flex is poison – always will be as long as it relies on the Flash player and Adobe owns it – same with AIR). I’ve never seen a company so happily willing to piss off their customer base and essentially throw them away. For what? Crappy little javascript toys?

Great move Adobe… give the CEO another raise for this stroke of genius.

I would be annoyed at this announcement regardless, yet wouldn’t mind as much were there a replacement, either in the adobe family or other publisher. But there isn’t. Abandoning FW isn’t about software tools or marketing. It is an abandonment of a huge segment of customers. Clearly, we resent it. I have little doubt it will dim our view of all adobe products.

By Schramer - 3:54 PM on May 6, 2013

Massive fail, Adobe. There is no better tool for web production than FW. Having used it since v1, there is no way I’m going back to using PS and Illustrator. I use them both when appropriate, but neither is ideal for web production. Will Dreamweaver start producing table-based layouts next? What a huge step backward. Adobe, I’m over you. You’re more and more irrelevant to the web every day.

By Marc Troy - 3:57 PM on May 6, 2013

This is horrible news. In my opinion FW is still the best tool to make Weblayouts. Adobe should advertise it and make it more accessible, not abandon it.

Congrats Adobe. You’re nominated for the award of the worst decision in 2013…no, sorry – for the worst decision EVER.

I’m pretty shocked and don’t know what to say – from one day to the next you simply stop the development of a tool which has been used by so many users all over the worls just in favor of some other tools which simply doesn’t come as close to the quality as fireworks offer. In the last years there was an ongoing discussion on which one is better for web- & ui design. So many blogs, so many comments and actually all came to the conclusion that those 2 tools are simply that different that you simply can’t compare them naturally – I guess there is a reason why, don’t you think?

So if you REALLY need to stop it – then at least publish the source code as open source for usage – maybe some others will take up the chance and build up a better product out of it.

I open 2 programs every day. Adobe Fireworks is one of them. Photoshop nor Illustrator compare.

Another bad example of corporate strategy/vision overtaking the desires and needs of the software’s end-users. Adobe is getting too big to listen which is scary.

Now to figure out which non-web-centric software (Photoshop or Illustrator) I can bend to come closest to being useful.

#Fail

By Un cabreado - 4:02 PM on May 6, 2013

You kill the best web/UI design tool, bye adobe.

By Peter - 4:06 PM on May 6, 2013

Way to shoot yourself in the foot Adobe, Fireworks is unique and you actually did a great job improving on it since the Macromedia days…not that much but that’s ok, Fireworks was awesome already. It’s the perfect tool for hybrid pixel/vector manipulation and the layering system just makes sense…photoshop’s and it’s clones layer handling is retarded. Please reconsider or sell it. Better yet, Open Source it.

Fireworks and web design were simply made for each other. I’ve used it since Macromedia days and have loved it ever since. I hope Adobe will read all these comments and reconsider this decision.

By Brant Wedel - 4:07 PM on May 6, 2013

yay, now the resolution independent web can be full of a bunch of resolution dependent images that are either blurry on retina devices, or 4x to large on non retina devices since Photoshop cant export effects at multiple resolutions =P. Also vectors exported to images can have blurry edges since Illustrator can’t properly work with pixel based constraints. If illustrator could export web-fonts this would not be a big deal =P. And designs in photoshop can continue to be implemented as image maps instead of CSS3 rules since its effects dont properly align to css capabilities.

Fireworks is my most used design program. You guys are making a huge error here. Photoshop is for editing PHOTOS. Illustrator is for complex illustrations.

Fireworks is the best sweet spot for designing multiple page sites that scale for retina displays and down.

You don’t offer any other tool with these features that web designers have embraced and loved. Where are we supposed to go?

By Huckleberry - 4:13 PM on May 6, 2013

Ugh! Worst news I’ve heard of late. FW is simple, consolidated and just right for web comping. Unmatched for that purpose. Only thing missing is SVG. FW optimization engine better become defacto FW truly dies.
So here’s the question.
What open source alt. is there–or even paid alternative?

By Christopher - 4:13 PM on May 6, 2013

I’ve used Fireworks since it was part of Macromedia and use it on every single project. Illustrator and Photoshop are all good for what they are built for but non are meant for rapid protyping/ wireframing or even really web design as Fireworks was.

We all knew this was happening since Fireworks has so many bugs such as unable to export files for almost a year now with the forums flooded with no responses because as we all suspected on there Adobe abandoned the software years ago.

So what are we all to do. Photoshop is in no way like Fireworks in what it can do, just like Fireworks can’t do all the things Photoshop can. Unless Photoshop will be drastically shifting direction then we’re screwed. What Adobe should do is SELL Fireworks to a third party company. Currently I’m paying for Creative Suite only to use Fireworks. I was holding out for the retina update but now that it will never come, going to cancel my CC subscription and figure out alternative means in the mean time.

Terrible decision – FW has been indispensable – I doubt my alternative will be an Adobe product!

By Your face - 4:25 PM on May 6, 2013

When I think of the comparison between Adobe Fireworks and Adobe Photoshop, I think of ITSJ and INFP. Fireworks was made and used by people who are natural designers whereas Photoshop was made for those who should not have been given a computer

Our entire design organization has been using Fireworks exclusively for over a decade. I personally have converted many PS users to happy and productive FW users who are astounded at its ease-of-use and powerful features. This is a sad day for our company, our designers, and the FW community at large. I suppose we’ll just be using our legacy FW until something better comes along, most likely from another software company. Super-disappointed.

By Your face - 4:30 PM on May 6, 2013

ITSJ and ENFP

By Simon - 4:32 PM on May 6, 2013

This sucks. At least they could have slowly merged PS and FW until they had the best of both worlds, but just dropping it like this…
I really hope they open source it, or sell it to someone else to bring it back to life.

Not that think it will make a lick of difference, but consider this my official complaint comment for Adobe killing off a tool that I’ve been using forever and that was everything I loved about web graphics and hated about Photoshop. I’ll try using Illustrator and PS, but the bottom line is FW does everything I need and having to learn two other programs to replace it is just dumb. I’m unhappy.

Photoshop sucks for rapid web work and Fireworks’ workflow was much better for non-graphic designers. Hoping some competitor comes up with an alternative to fill the void. Photoshop is not the answer here — it’s bloated and overpriced for what most web developers need.

Between this and the new forced-subscription model, I don’t think I’ll be buying any more Adobe products down the road.

By Damion - 4:58 PM on May 6, 2013

Who knows if it will work but there is a petition to make Fireworks Open Source.
Click on over there and sign it.

I was really concerned when you guys bought Macromedia, but was pleasantly suprised when you never changed the U/X in fireworks to work like Photoshop! That was one of my biggest fears, you messing with something that worked well… Macromedia did it right with Fireworks and their model still works great to this day.

Sell Fireworks to another company, you don’t deserve it.

By Hammad - 7:19 PM on May 6, 2013

couldn’t agree more

By G. Ulloa - 5:25 PM on May 6, 2013

Open source it. This is a mistake, unless it’s functionality is completely preserved in another Adobe program… too bad.

Fireworks was available at a fraction of the cost of Photoshop. And Fireworks was somewhat eating the lunch of Adobe’s Photoshop.

Despite the fact that Fireworks was clearly superior to the bloated PS, Adobe killed FW just for financial reasons, not for the benefit of its customers. And for that reason, time has come to study other non-Adobe alternatives.

May 6, 2013, will be a mourning day for me.

By Ian - 5:42 PM on May 6, 2013

I agree completely. Fireworks was what Photoshop aspired to be when it came to web and UI design tools. Most of the modern concepts in Photoshop were introduced by fireworks long ago. Many of them have been adopted in some way, but others, like Pages, have not.

I would gladly pay more for Fireworks.

By Raphael Simas - 5:28 PM on May 6, 2013

Very disappointing… Incredible disappointing… I have no words to tell how sad I am right now. I work with Fireworks since version 2. And since Adobe bought Macromedia, Fireworks has been put aside… It never got the attention it needed. And now, Adobe destroys an entire workflow for a million of designers… I hope Fireworks keep being developed by someone else… Because today, is a very very sad day…

By meeh - 5:29 PM on May 6, 2013

Sad, it sure has its limits but for most web related tasks it still is the most efficient tool. On top, it is somehow the most intuitive and easiest to really get a full grasp of in the field.

This is by far the biggest mistake you have done. There is no alternative for fireworks. You have been treating fireworks like crap since macromedia merge with adobe. If you put half of the effort you invested in flash, firework would have grown to the quality of photoshop and illustrator. But you only diminished until this moment.

I agree that there is overlap between Fireworks and Photoshop. They’re both imaging programs, so there is bound to be overlap. But it’s disingenuous at best to say that Fireworks can be replaced. Perhaps it *can* be replaced, but I won’t be replacing it with Photoshop. I want an application that was built to work specifically with web graphics. Photoshop isn’t it. I don’t need a team of surgeons to bandage a flesh wound. I need Fireworks, which was built for one thing and did it perfectly. This is a giant mistake.

By Arthur - 5:56 PM on May 6, 2013

“overlap in the functionality between Fireworks and both existing and new programs like Photoshop, Illustrator, and Edge Reflow”

Where ? Wich one ?

“At the same time we have shifted to focus our engineering teams on building smaller, more modular, tools and services for specific tasks in web design”

So you will split the FRWKS functionality in more small softwares,in order to have the same result , but we will need to buy more stuff.

“we have decided not to update Fireworks to CC and instead will focus on developing new tools to meet our customers needs.”

You better focus in developing and improving what you have.
Your decision is based on a economical and financial target.
Don t come here with technical overlap functionality of the bulshit.
Be Honest.

Wow! Bad decision on Adobe’s part. I agree with another post, hopefully someone buys it from Adobe. My whole design team uses Fireworks for layouts. We say it is our “secret weapon” and that anyone who uses Photoshop doesn’t know what they are missing.

Absolute worst design news ever. Common adobe, Photoshop has absolutely terrible vector support, a small blend mode library, cruddy font aliasing and is terrible for creating web mock ups. No border radius resizing, this is crud guys. You are making a big mistake and I will not be moving to creative cloud. Cut your flash focus and stick to either keeping fireworks or finally (& I say finally because it has always been lame) making Photoshop work for web design. Image ready was never the answer and either is this.

Sad. Fireworks is the only app I use for design–and I don’t just mean for the web.

By Andres - 6:27 PM on May 6, 2013

Con esta noticia para mi se acabo adobe…

By Marcus - 6:30 PM on May 6, 2013

Adobe is and always has been focused on a single category of customer that provides maximum profit. This is very short sighted to not appreciate the breadth and variety of customers. Adobe wants a one size fits all approach that leaves a lot of people behind. Always has been this way.

I will stick with CS4 as long as I can remain productive. I was considering an upgrade but not if they treat their customers like this. Fireworks is an amazing tool for web content. Are they providing an alternative? What is the vision here? Force customers into a subscription model and reduce costs by cutting product development. They don’t need to provide compelling new features to keep your business as you are forced into a monthly fee.

For both web and and especially mobile app interface development Fireworks is hands down the best option for interface graphics.

I can appreciate some of the new tools and the movement for web beyond most raster graphics. But this is still critical within Mobile Apps.

Just do a search: Photoshop vs Fireworks for interface design, you’ll get the picture.

One thought to leave you with… where is contextual click to select an element in Photoshop? Is this so hard?

By tnks - 6:43 PM on May 6, 2013

Nooooooo.

By Connie N - 6:45 PM on May 6, 2013

You have got to be kidding. Please rethink this.

By Markko - 6:49 PM on May 6, 2013

First you killed the most versatile graphic software called FreeHand and here goes the Fireworks. If you hated Macromedia that much, why did you buy it? Oh, I know, because they were better than you and you just could not take it. Well, what comes to Fireworks, Antetype just got another client.

I feel like you guys are going to regret making this decision when you realize that all the other prototyping tools out there don’t have as big of an ecosystem as Adobe does to support what they’ve been pitching to every single UX designer out there. At R/GA, we’ve figured out how to streamline the process from concept to wireframes to prototypes to visual using all Adobe products and guess what, Fireworks is a big component of that. It was such a huge success that I even held workshops around it and even started a site called Tapotype.com, that uses TAP (unitid.com) to generate clickable prototypes using Fireworks. On top of that, we’ve created over 40+ of our own transitions in additional to the 10+ transitions that came with TAP. Oh, did I mention, this surpasses all the other prototyping tools out there, e.g. Flinto/Axure/etc., because it allows people that know some code to create their own transitions, which then get used through Fireworks. The resulting product, an interactive prototype and assets that can be reused in documentation. Like I said, I have a feeling that Adobe will be eating its own words in the not-so-distant future.

I can’t make a comment that wouldn’t reflect many of those made prior, but I couldn’t let this pass me by without saying something.

Are you kidding? None of your other tools are a correct fit for me – or I would have moved to them! Killing Fireworks is just a silly and under-thought re-action to Adobe loosing it’s grip on the web developer workflow. Strange then that they choose to wipeout the tool that many of those said developers/UI designers can’t find a product to replace it with.

You’re throwing away one of your best assets to save a slowly sinking/shrinking(?) ship.

Please, sell Fireworks source code to another company. They will make a LOT of money improving and maintaining this product.

By Scott - 7:09 PM on May 6, 2013

After the improvements in Visual Studio 2012, the vast supply of useful packages for Sublime Text 2, there is now no reason to continue to purchase Adobe software. Fireworks is, hands down, the fastest, most intuitive, and best software to produce graphics for the web. Everything else is trying to catchup, and now you’ve given them the opportunity.

Terrible decision Adobe, and you won’t be getting any more of my money.

Nothing less than a complete failure to understand your web designer user base Adobe. Photoshop has no place in a UI workflow and never has. Fireworks simply works for fast prototyping, slicing and wireframes. It has always been the embodiment of the GTD workflow for web UI work. The extensibility made by user created add-ons empowers the little app even more. I hope you reconsider this extremely poor decision.

I have been using Adobe Fireworks since 1999 albeit forcefully by my then boss. I have become dependent on its sometimes sloppy Frankenstein of Photoshop and Illustrator combined behavior, but that was the beauty. Adobe killed it today and I am very afraid of what is to come with their announcement of cloud services. Sad day in my world. I can’t go back to Photoshop for web design. I refuse!

I would just like to echo what everyone else has said here. I too use Fireworks for hours on end daily. This is a HUGE blow to my efficiency as a web developer for all my prototyping. It’s bad enough Windows 8 is a complete joke and being forced upon me. Now this too? What a sad, horrible year for software. Fireworks & Acrobat Pro are THE reasons for my CC subscription. Maybe I made a mistake in subscribing to CC.

By Diego - 8:06 PM on May 6, 2013

This is a big mistake, Photoshop is just not that good to design websites, Fireworks is the right tool for that.

I work with Fireworks by ten years and I guess you need to rethink that decision, Fireworks forever S2

By Maak Bow - 8:27 PM on May 6, 2013

THEN THERE BETTER BE A BETTER REPLACEMENT ON OFFER THAN CURRENTLY IS…ADOBE…
because none of the current apps offer the workflow fireworks does.

Although design is design, and Adobe have come from a background of supporting tools for print and after acquiring Macromedia there didn’t seem to be the understanding of what Fireworks actually allowed people to achieve or how they achieved it, or indeed who the users were.. Even the tutorials on Adobe for FW seem aimed at children.

We design serious web apps and mobile apps and some large websites. We have been using and evangelizing Fireworks for 11 years or more. Not a single person I have introduced Fireworks to (for screen design) has looked back.

Many groups seem to be trying to fill the gap for screen design and coming up with better tools but no one seems to have come close to what Fireworks is….was. Let’s hope it works through Os upgrades until a decent replacement comes along

By Adam - 8:40 PM on May 6, 2013

Looks like there’s about 300 or so comments on this thread (5/6/2013 8:35pm PDT) and almost all of them are against Adobe killing off Fireworks. That’s impressive! Adobe should use this opportunity to gauge continued interest in this product. Seems like there’s more of a market there than some of their other tools.

I’ve had the company I work for and the ones in the past buy license(s). ONLY for Fireworks, I’ve converted users into using Fireworks.

You will not see a penny from me from now on. I just can’t believe Adobe is this naive. When there is an argument about which software people use, it is usually a 40% to 60% divide of Fireworks users, and we can usually get the 60% Photoshop users to agree that Fireworks excels in speed for UI designers (not for photo work of course, but it does the job).

This, just sucks, this is the software I have used and relied on for years. Disappointed.

I see no overlaps. Using Illustrator or PhotoShop for web graphics is awkward and produces mixed results.

Instead of tossing it in the trash, just remove it from your suite…. then make Fireworks an independent product… or at least sell it to another company.

By Sirisian - 9:11 PM on May 6, 2013

Don’t do this. It’s the only program you guys write that I use and enjoy. I’m not an artist or anything. I just use it for note taking and to draw images with it. It’s wonderful and no program compares to the user experience. Please reconsider. I will pay you 15 dollars a year to use this program if you make it a special single membership option. (I can’t justify 20 dollars a month even if you offered it. I keep it open in the background to take notes, but it’s not a 240 USD a year program). http://i.imgur.com/1EQGy.gif

By Thief - 9:19 PM on May 6, 2013

Fine! It looks like this guy won’t be illegally downloading your software anymore… especially if everything goes to that cloud service.

I am very disappointed in you Adobe. You don’t even realize you killed the better web graphics app you have. I’m sorry to say, but this was a very poor decision on Adobe’s part. I can only hope that you make Photoshop / Illustrator not suck for web design, but I’m not holding my breath. It’s been years and I’m still waiting. Why is slicing in Ai and Ps so poor compared to Fw? Web graphics are going to get harder in the future now because of this. Argh, I’m very sad and frustrated. Now with all this new money from CC subscribers, you’d think you could keep this app going. Without Fireworks I’ll have to spend more time producing my web graphics. Thanks for the downgrade. I’m not liking this direction at all. Please reconsider!

– Fw can do sprites, will that be added to PS or Ai?
– What about adding Fw’s PNG8 semi-transparent export to Ps and Ai?
– Are you ever going to fix the slicing in Ai so it’s always correct? Sometimes it’s one horizontal/vertical pixel off.
– What about about Fw custom anti-aliasing to Ps and Ai?

This is just to name a few! I could go on, but I feel like I’m wasting my time. At least give this to another company if you’re not going to develop it. I doubt Adobe will because they don’t want a good competitor to Ps and Ai. Instead of killing Fw you should have improved and promoted it. All Fw needed was a PR person.

By Dale - 9:47 PM on May 6, 2013

ADOBE! For shame… Do you not realize that FW is the goto tool for web, application, and mobile design? Do you not understand how awful it is to do these tasks with Illustrator or Photoshop? You spend all this effort on EDGE crap… I just dont get it, and I guess you dont either.

Some of the world’s most talented iconographers and UI specialists are avid Fireworks users. Yes it has its quirks, but only because Adobe has neglected it for so long.

I really hope they’ve listened to their customers and have planned something better. Obviously this decision was made awhile back, so it won’t be long before the competitors start coming out of the woodwork with some really strong alternatives.

By Mike Brave - 10:05 PM on May 6, 2013

nothing I say here will change their minds on this, but I am really disappointed, can’t say I didn’t see it coming eventually though, all the former macromedia properties have been treated like the unwanted stepchildren to adobe, neglected, forgotten, buggy and with minimal improvements.

That said though, they think they are freeing up resources to work on things that will bring in higher revenues, I get that, but these areas that seem less profitable are how competitors rise (look up the basic concept behind innovators dilemma).

It’s your company adobe, I’ve been loyal in the past, but each move like this makes me more an more open for a competitor, I’m twice as likely today to try something by another company than I was yesterday, good luck, and I hope you know what your doing (but from where I sit, it doesn’t really seem like it, just as likely is you just need to explain it better).

By Tuấn Nguyễn - 10:25 PM on May 6, 2013

I love this news. I do web design by Photoshop everyday. Fireworks should be killed.

By Muhammed Jenos - 5:26 AM on May 7, 2013

I am sure you even use a bicycle to plow the field.

By Lenny A - 10:30 PM on May 6, 2013

Crafting web user interfaces and web pages on Fireworks the last two years has saved me LOT of hours and probably even saved my neck, arm and wrist from injuries, there is no way Photoshop can replace the workflow of a tool that was meant for the WEB in the first place. It’s arrogant of Adobe to first acquire competitors (Macromedia Fireworks) and then just throw their fantastic software away. What is the point for me to continue subscribing to Creative Cloud when my major tool is FW?

By Annie Stewart - 11:15 PM on May 6, 2013

This is a terrible decision and it will be the death of you in the digital industry.

Fireworks is the only relevant tool to modern web designers that’s left in your suite. The web needs fast, agile, light software for fast, agile, light design. We need prototypes, iterative module development, constant small refreshes. Fireworks is great for that and it’s easy to learn. Photoshop is crazy overkill and no one uses it anymore except for small specialized pieces.

You, Adobe, are a monopoly on the software industry digital creation. You do not have the right to act like a despot as you are responsible for thousands of business using your products.
To my mind, we might even try a class action in order to be compensated for any losses that your decision will generate!

Admit that photoshop is not a tool for webdesign!

You dare ironic about our passionate community, well, I hope that this one will respond by flooding social networks with vehement claims.

I realise there will be company politics or strategical plans overriding our complaints but surely this is a bad business decision?

Fireworks is by far the best web / app / UX design tool and this must leave a large gap in the market?

Photoshop in comparison is bloated and was never intended for web use. Its like using a fork to cut your food, it works but funnily enough a knife works better!

Fireworks has been part of my daily workflow for 11 years now, I’d go as far as saying my business was built on it!

Hopefully there can be a positive resolution from the community – some kind of petition, kickstarter alternative, another company to take on the mantle etc?

By Jeff Swearingen - 12:19 AM on May 7, 2013

As a prototyper, this is horrible news for me and I’m considering NOT renewing my Creative Cloud subscription once Fireworks is no longer available. I can use Coda in place of Dreamweaver along with my old copies Fireworks 5.5 and Photoshop 5.1 in perpetuity instead of constantly paying for something that’s inferior to the original product.

What a shame!

By Maciej Jankowski - 12:26 AM on May 7, 2013

I have used Fireworks for over a decade, since Macromedia days and it is the fastest, easiest graphic design tool out there. I’m not saying it can do polished things like PS, but it is a class of its own.
Adobe, would you donate it to open source since you don’t plan on using it to make money?
I bet it wouldn’t hurt.

By Eyal Cagan - 12:27 AM on May 7, 2013

Sad, But…That not mean one can’t still use Fireworks, the way he did until today (mean doing it all with less files, half the time and better export workflow with better output then PS or Illustrator)
That only mean that one will not pay to adobe anymore for features he don’t actually need!
There wasn’t one feature I Feel I’m missing since Fireworks CS4 (that I still use and extend today) – I use it with the Jquery mobile extension I export CSS trough another extension, import and export SVG and XAML, the design tool didn’t change much anyway (except maybe the Opacity and Gradient for stroke – but if needed can be created other ways), and most importantly: the workflow of doing all form one tool in one file have no equivalent or replacement, therefore:
Don’t give up your workflow, it’s the best exist if you not having something better… (which I don’t have)
I would be happy to see the source go freehttp://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/adobe-com-release-adobe-fireworks-to-open-source?share_id=gdtEJZNXvL&utm_campaign=signature_receipt&utm_medium=email&utm_source=share_petition

Long Leave the Fireworks user!

By Eric - 12:29 AM on May 7, 2013

Terrible deciscion Adobe, Photoshop is terrible and bloated application for webdesign, I have cursed it so many times. The page feature is awesome in fireworks. LayerComps really really suck! You are making a really big mistake.

By christoph - 12:35 AM on May 7, 2013

I cannot understand this decision. Adobe do not provide anything near fireworks when it comes to productivity in Webdesign. Photoshop is great for so many things but its layer hell in webdesign. Illustrator might be an alternative but in pixel view there are many bothering bugs.

Its obvious that Adobe did not do much to provide a better Fireworks. Stability – or better lack of stability has been an issue since I started using it in 2009. But even with a crash or two every day my productivity with FW has been double or triple compared to other Adobe products.

Shame on you Adobe. You are fooling the Professionals. It would be better to analyse why FW has been such an success in webdesign and then develop a real alternative. PS and Illustrator certainly are not.

By Jurriaan Ruitenberg - 12:42 AM on May 7, 2013

You killed flash, you killed fireworks and raped me for the last couple of years with lack of support and ridiculous pricing policies. Time for you to leave Adboe, bye.

Nooooo . FW useres – we need to do something about this. Some petition site to keep it alive – something. This is the best adobe tool there is. Lets make some noise and not let this happen.

By Søren Bennebo - 12:49 AM on May 7, 2013

I use Fireworks about 8 hours everyday for UI and Web design – I really don’t want to go back to Photoshop for this part of my work – mainly because the layers in PS are very hard to keep track on in large projects. So unless Adobe come up with a very good alternative to Fireworks I hope somebody else will…

This is a very bad decision Adobe, as you can see from the reasoned and informative comments in this thread. Did you every carry out market research on this decision or carry out any scenario planning as to what the worst possible outcome could be for Adobe in taking this decision? I sure hope you did, because as this protest grows (it is not going to go away, it is like a bad oil spill) whoever took this decision is not going to be the flavour of the month with investors and shareholders.

Fireworks was a great *tool* for what it did, and none of your other products get near it and frankly I cannot see the day when they would.

The only reason I can think of as to why you took this decision is because you thought that as PS and AI were so feature rich and so expensive then people would find it harder to leave them so all your efforts have to go there (focus on the core). Oh, and we can develop some small other tools for people wanting to do other stuff, that will keep them happy. However, what you failed to realise, is that what many web designers loved about Fireworks was that is was a *powerful tool* that did a great deal of what they wanted, and your other big apps were merely accessories to that workflow. I guess you felt you could never charge as much for Fireworks as you could for e.g. PS or ID and you did not want it stealing their thunder – so why not kill it and bring out some cheaper less powerful apps as a sop?

Well, I hope your CEO is “big enough” to listen to this feedback and to say “hey, we need to rethink this quick or we are going to lose many loyal customers”. I doubt it, but I hope so….

Bad idea Adobe – Photoshop is WAY too bloated. It is not precise – it is difficult to work with – it is a PHOTO EDITOR that you have tried to shoe-horn a million things into – does a photo editor need to output video? No – does it need to have a crap 3D renderer? No. It needs to edit photos! and it does that brilliantly.
It doesn’t handle the web / screen graphics workflow anywhere near as well as fireworks – Make it open source so we can continue to develop it eh!!

By Etan Rozin - 1:07 AM on May 7, 2013

An unbelievably stupid move. Clearly Adobe has no insight into how web designers actually work.
I just can’t grasp the rational of such a move. Here is the best tool for the job. It has a passionate following. A growing market. Lets cut it…
Please reconsider. You are leaving us high and dry.

By Iwan - 1:07 AM on May 7, 2013

Oh, Adobe. If you bring out a new Prototyping and Interface Design Tool in two years, that beats the Fireworks workflow, you will earn my full respect for your decision.

But until then I highly doubt that Photoshop, or any other of your applications can beat the Fireworks workflow. Sure, the FW program code is crap, it crashes, the interface is slow, but still, it’s faster than everything else. Nothing beats the combination of pages, states and global layers.

Just moved the entire team over to Fireworks in the last year, after using Photoshop for many years. They all love it and don’t know why they have been using Photoshop for so long. Don’t make us go back to Layer comps hell!

By namtscho - 1:16 AM on May 7, 2013

Unbelievable! :`-(
Specialized tools for each purpose – what a bullshit!
I like the cloud and the possibility to use PS and IS for some special tasks. But the “bread and butter” tool for me is Fireworks, since the Macromedia times…
I hope that Rf and the interaction with PS and IS will fill this gap.

Extremely disappointed. Photoshop is not a web design tool. It’s way too bloated with print and photo correction tools.
Vectors and “smart objects” in Photoshop are a nightmare to use. Adjusting button gradients? Easy in fireworks, nightmare in photoshop.
You can’t easily select multiple items at once in Photoshop! The list goes on and on.

From the day I started using Fireworks (more than 5 years ago) I never once looked back on Photohop, except to wonder why anyone in the web business would even use it at all.

Comments on this page are perfectly explaining how professionals in web design are disappointed:

– we need efficency and specialized tools
– we don’t need to open a gigantic software like photoshop AND another one as Illustrator to work on a webpage
– we need FW features, should you really think we can find them in Photoshop without overlapping!?
– we’re all ready to change software. Be carefull, don’t destroy Photoshop forcing it too.

By tamar - 1:35 AM on May 7, 2013

this is a disaster!
i use many of the adobe products, in particular, fireworks illustrator, flash, photoshop and indesign,and actually fireworks is the latest software i stared using.

Hands down, fireworks is the best software out there for web design.
the whole approche, of pages, states and layers together is simple easy and let you examine flow and many visual options, easily.
the tools themselves combine the best of both softwares (illustrator, and photoshop), object oriented on the one hand, and simple image editing on the other.
that’s all you need!
the other software are a nightmare to work on for web design. photoshop is robust, and you get swamped by the amount of layers, the vector tools are unintuitive to say the least.
illustrator is great for illustration, but is lacking the structure and flow that fireworks offers, and even simple things like the gradient tool and effects, are harder to handle in illustrator.

i really hope you guys re-consider, fireworks is a brilliant product! and makes web design easy.
in the current product landscape, i really don’t see a suitable alternative…

By Pete Vox - 1:36 AM on May 7, 2013

Just adding my voice to the general sense of (extreme) disappointment.

I use Fireworks on a daily basis – it’s the core of my workflow when prototyping designs. Fireworks is a tool that was originally designed specifically for web designers, where PS has just been adopted by us but grew from a photographer’s toolset. AI has also been adopted, but grew from a graphic designer’s toolset. Neither are 100% focused on what we, as web designers, need to achieve – quickly – or offer the overall efficiency of Fireworks. PS and AI are nowhere near as fast when it comes to creating fast (pixel-perfect) layouts, aligning objects (to the pixel), being able to modify a design to accommodate client feedback etc etc etc.

The killer feature (for me) is the ability to be able to create Fireworks master art files containing multiple pages, each page at a different size, with a different rendering option…and Fireworks able to ‘remember’ the output file name for each of them. This means that design refreshes of source art assets is a relatively simple process – and no more hunting for the right layer group in a monolithic PS file. Add to that the ability to create library symbols and smart objects – and there is no way that PS can currently compete. AI may have a chance (in the future) of offering some of these features – but it is still focused on output to print – not the web.

I’m a CC subscriber, and will continue to use Fireworks CS6 as long as it’s part of the subscription. If it’s ever removed, then I’ll have to just reinstall an old version.

Its shame what you doing with fireworks, adobe buy it from Macromedia to Kill it, for me fireworks its more simple to work than photoshop, i hope adobe regret of doing this, adobe fireworks both good softwares but fireworks better in interface and graphics in my opinion.

I’ve been using Fireworks since day one. My entire career (14 years as webdesigner / UI designer in a big agency and now as freelancer) is based on it. In fact, it never even occured to me that I should buy Photoshop as I could achieve the same quality in FW, only faster.

I’d rather stick to FW and switch to a competitor (if someone has the smarts of releaseing a true FW-clone now) when it becomes too outdated. And if that doesn’t happen, I’d rather take up my pencils again and relaunch my earlier carreer as an illustrator than start using bloatware.

Anyway, I’m quite p*ssed with Adobe right now and I feel that out of respect for their clients who were using FW on a daily basis, the least they could do is sell it or make it open source.

The decision to stop developing and supporting Fireworks seems completely misguided and shortsighted to me.

Fireworks is the only comprehensive tool for design for the web that exist in the CS/CC eco-system, is loved by a lot of users and aside from it’s bugs (which are many and hint of a continued slide and lack of interest/investment) it’s a great and intiuitive tool with quick workflow for designers. I don’t get how using other tools form CC will plug this gap and seems like a real mistake to me.

At the very least you could either open the code and make it open source or sell it on to another developer to run with it.

Have to say that the smart thing to do would have been to look at how you better integrate FW with other Adobe tools so that designers would have still been tied in to Adobe toolset and been able to continue to use their tool of choice.

After Adobe stripped all they needed from Fw and put it in Ps (like the “great new” feature in Ps – the rounded rectangles!!!), it sounds very hypocritically indeed to say that “Over the last couple of years, there has been an increasing amount of overlap in the functionality between Fireworks and both existing and new programs like Photoshop, Illustrator, and Edge Reflow. “. This overlap was intentional and they never actually did something good for the development or promotion of Fw.
I strongly believe that Adobe have the wrong policy in that direction and they still haven’t got anything better to offer when it comes to an efficient tool for web design. For me it feels like somebody is taking my best tool out of my hands. There is no way I can trust Adobe now or in the future. Many Fw users will just continue to use it as long as possible, and even many more will switch to some open source alternative, however hard this shift is going to be.

By Dominic Crook - 2:11 AM on May 7, 2013

This is madness. Fireworks is the pinnacle of web design software, there is nothing that comes remotely close (just spend time using PhotoShop then Fireworks and see just how much wuicker and easier it is to achive what you want in Fireworks).

On the plus side at least I can now cancel my Creative Cloud membership and just buy CS6 on disc.

Terrible decision Adobe. Fireworks is a great and easiest tool.
I certainly use it instead of AI / CorelDraw when working with vectors.
You don’t know what you are doing.

By mike-ekim - 2:26 AM on May 7, 2013

Adobe has truly lost the plot. It’s hard to believe, but dedicated FW users have seen this coming for some time.

for the sake of all fireworks users:

MAKE FIREWORKS OPEN SOURCE NOW!!!!!!!!!!

ADOBE – IF YOU DON’T WANT IT, THERE ARE THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE THAT DO.

DO THE DECENT THING, AND LET GO OF FIREWORKS.

By Kobbie - 2:27 AM on May 7, 2013

A miserable miserable decision Adobe! Fireworks is currently your only valuable tool that fully supports design for screen. Photoshop sucks big time in that field and requires a combination with AI which is also not oriented to screen design.

YOU ARE KILLING YOURSELF.

This change will leave a huge gap that hopefully one of your competitors will be clever enough to fill in.

By mike-ekim - 2:53 AM on May 7, 2013

From my point of view (I have been a professional web designer for 20 years), adobe’s management appears to be living in some sort of citadel where they can only hear the sound of their own thoughts.

Fireworks is the best web design tool there is! Therefore, adobe’s decision to scrap it shows their own incompetence.

At this time, hundreds, thousands of people responded “Keep Fireworks, it’s unique, it’s useful, we need it!”

So what Adobe did? A few years later, after it was developing Fireworks so badly (and slowly, at least compared to the fast development pace of Photoshop)… Adobe drops development of Fireworks altogether!

I use Fireworks every day! I need it. It’s the true tool for UI/screen design — fast, lightweight, combining the best of vectors and bitmap editing, it has pages/layers/stats, styles, symbols and rich symbols, it has perfect export + export preview, it can be used for illustration, design, rapid prototyping, everything!

I would like to say more, but can’t, my head needs to cool down first…

By VF - 3:18 AM on May 7, 2013

Bad move. Mix of bitmap and vector in the same layers + editable PNG’s–what else do you need? Only problems with Fw are font rendering and very passable brush management, nothing you couldn’t fix on a Sunday morning if you really wanted. If they ever build a Windows version, those guys from Sketch app will gonna give a good run for your money, Adobe.

By Ruben - 3:26 AM on May 7, 2013

This is a slap in the face of Adobe customers.

In our company Fireworks is the main tool for designing websites. We had established a fluid workflow that rely on using Firework in many stages of the proccess.

Forcing us to abandon it would make us reconsider keeping using Adobe products. We won´t use Phostoshop or Illustrator for designing website, they are not the appropiate tools. Edge Reflow has potential but it´s not a desing tool.

I hope you seriously reconsider this decision. We, customers, DEMAND that Fireworks stays, as you may see.

By Jen - 3:33 AM on May 7, 2013

Goodbye Adobe, I will no longer buy another one of your products.

By Ifeanyi Isitor - 3:36 AM on May 7, 2013

I’m a web developer. Not a designer and so I don’t use tools like photoshop and illustrator. Such tools are for dedicated designers who require intricate control over their design workflow and hence can overlook the heaviness. Fireworks allowed me as a developer to still be able to quickly put together web designs whenever I needed to without needing to have any design skills. I’m also quite sure that there are a lot of fireworks users that are like me so I don’t see how killing this tool is good. By killing this tool, you would decrease the power I have to get stuff down. I would be forced to now have to learn multiple new tools just to get simple things done that I used to be able to easily do before. That’s in no way helping me to progress. Instead of killing it, why not just make it open source, or sell it off or something. Why is the only option to kill it?

By Levent - 3:39 AM on May 7, 2013

best website/ui design application killed by adobe. this so sad :/
It’s a shame!

By Vizor - 3:46 AM on May 7, 2013

Don’t do this !
I am very disappointed in you Adobe. You don’t even realize you killed the better web graphics app you have.
This is a terrible decision and it will be the death of you in the web digital industry.

By Isabel - 3:49 AM on May 7, 2013

Photoshop for web design?

Ill-frustrator to do vector work??

Adobe you must think we are all dumb.

By efeek - 3:59 AM on May 7, 2013

As good as the other Adobe tools are, they are simply no match for Fireworks and web!

By James - 4:03 AM on May 7, 2013

Adobe, what a ridiculous justification for an utterly idiotic move! Listen to your customers and do the right thing.

This is frigging ridiculous. I am upset, annoyed and really really angry. Adobe, you should stop pushing that bloated Photoshop as a solution to worlds problems and try to get to know your customers needs.

Fireworks would have been better off in Macromedia’s hands. Shame on them and their greed to sell of their vision to these guys.

Although I really love to work with Illustrator and Photoshop I see some overlap with Fireworks. But at the end of the day, Fireworks was my InDesign for creating User Interfaces. Final ones and Wireframes.

I‘m not addicted to Fireworks as long as you can manage to create a tool which makes creating UI layouts better then Fireworks does it now with it‘s Master Pages, Shareable Layers, Graphics Style Libraries. Uniting Bitmap and Vector Content in one tool. Helping to create pixelperfect layouts other thousands of pages. Making it easy to edit small changes very quick among various pages…

On the other hand it was really not stable and sometimes really buggy.

If you really want to kill Fireworks, you really have to come up with a better solution very fast!

By Damian - 8:27 AM on May 7, 2013

The should fix the bugs and stabilize it. I don’t need 3 new tools when i can use one!

By Marnix Appen - 4:41 AM on May 7, 2013

I really love this. Bye bye Adobe software, it’s too much. All software should go and only MacBook PRO we should use its software tools. Anything you could do with JQuery + FireWorks & PHP & C++ you could with MacBook PRO software,

By Rembem - 4:41 AM on May 7, 2013

I don’t even know where to begin.

Adobe, you are making a lot of very arrogant decisions the last few days. A lot of pro users are not very happy and that is an understatement.

Killing software that people have had in their daily workflow for ages, with years of archived files destined to become inaccessible within a few osx updates.

Forcing everybody to the cloud, with your files inaccessible when you don’t pay your monthly fee, so effectively paying for the rest of your working life and no way out because you bought the competition a few years back (killing all their great software in all your wisdom, don’t get me started on that). Focussing all efforts on ‘cool new toys’ that nobody really needs.

I just paid a lot of money for the CS6 master suite, which probably will not be updated, and in which are bugs that have been known over a year and have not been fixed until today, and probably will not be fixed at all anymore.

Why would you discontinue a unique and extremely valuable tool? You say Fireworks overlaps with the feature of Photoshop and Illustrator… You clearly don’t use your own products. I use all three products and they are all very different indeed.

Fireworks is your only true ‘web design’ and ‘rapid prototyping’ tool. Photoshop and Illustrator do not compare when it comes to this. You should be developing Fireworks further, not killing it.

Over the years I’ve converted many of my designer colleagues to using Fw instead of Ps. They ALL have never looked back and could not believe the speed and power of the tool.

I believe it’s Adobe’s bad marketing and neglect of Fw which did not give it more traction within the market. You should have focused more on it and I think you would have seen very different results.

You must honour the loyal Fw user base and release it as open-source.

By VF - 3:41 AM on May 9, 2013

“You should be developing Fireworks further, not killing it.”.

Ditto.

By Hani Hassan - 4:51 AM on May 7, 2013

VERY BAD adobe… don’t do that ! “there has been an increasing amount of overlap in the functionality” That you have to think before buying Macromedia…
– You stop the Freehand and launch the In Design.
– You launch the Edge.
You may add/change the functionality directly to these softwares:
Enhanced Freehand with in Design features and Enhanced Dreamweaver with Edge features.
FIREWORKS is Visually Web Designing tool that is hundred times better then other softwares like Photoshop (I know its not for web designing)

You may merge Dreamwaver and also Edge to FIREWORKS rather then stooping fireworks

SO CHANGE YOUR PLANS and think again because its also impacting that you are degrading MACROMEDIA… I am sorry if you feel some harshness

By nemrod - 4:53 AM on May 7, 2013

No way !

You, Adobe, are a monopoly on the software industry digital creation. You do not have the right to act like a despot as you are responsible for thousands of business using your products.
To my mind, we might even try a class action in order to be compensated for any losses that your decision will generate!

Admit that photoshop is not a tool for webdesign!

You dare ironic about our passionate community, well, I hope that this one will respond by flooding social networks with vehement claims.

It was the worst news I’ve had this year! Why this urge to destroy something good that Community have a whole enjoy! Des start Adobe never wanted to move forward with the fireworks, always wanted the boring photoshop that has no focus. Always bad update for each version of the package and never showed on the website or in the promotional gear. When you would look at the site, was always hidden.

Why not release the source code for the open source community developing follow? This is very obvious! The adobe does not want this software has that market share. At the end of the fireworks was totally underestimated and nothing valued as it should have been. You will now be completely dismantled and reutililizado other, and that of keeping it running is still bale it because when it’s convenient for Adobe they will remove it from all over the place.

I’ve used Fireworks since version 1.0 and will continue to use it no matter what – I can run XP on a dual boot machine so support for the latest OS isn’t an issue. This does lead the market wide open for a start-up with a bit of vision to eat Adobe’s lunch.

I work with fireworks since 2001 in its version 4.0, I always thought the fireworks better than photoshop for convenience and speed, especially for the fact that he is more focused on web, there is millions of plugins to make an effect you to work with fireworks it requires more creativity than technology (plugins), finally regrettable adobe to take this stance hope someone emerges in the market interested in buying fireworks and continue the project and then release it as opensource. Unhappy with this news! = /

By Brent - 5:35 AM on May 7, 2013

Nnnnnnooooooo! Workflows will defiantly suffer!

By Alex - 5:38 AM on May 7, 2013

I really hate photoshop and i was really happy using Fireworks for 4 years. Thank you very much for ruininbg a big part of my work.

By Nathalie Gouzée - 5:41 AM on May 7, 2013

Since you redeem Macromedia, you destroy fireworks…
Why am I not surprised?

Do you really understand the needs of web designers and mobile designers?

By Isabel - 6:37 AM on May 7, 2013

They don’t even understand how an intuitive tool should be designed to make. Never did.

And any chance they had, they killed it buying Macromedia and ruining it all.

By Isabel - 6:38 AM on May 7, 2013

They don’t even understand how an intuitive tool should be designed to make it intuitive.

Never did.

And any chance they had, they killed it buying Macromedia and ruining it all.

By Isabel - 6:38 AM on May 7, 2013

You know what I mean hopefully ehehe

By Nathalie Gouzée - 7:10 AM on May 7, 2013

Oh yes !!!
Totally agree with you!
It’s like going back in the past…
We were probably too productive with this tool…

I feel like they really don’t care about Fireworks users.

Let’s try Sketch then

By llamaz - 5:42 AM on May 7, 2013

You should have implemented CMYK in Fireworks and then disbanded Photoshop.

I think it was a good idea to keep it RGB and not go that route. FW is a screen app not for print.

By llamaz - 8:59 AM on May 7, 2013

Guys relax. Don’t you know that print is the future? In a few years nobody will use websites anymore, all information will be accessed in printed newspapers and magazines and not on tablets, smartphones and PCs. So if you are a software company – oh pardon me – an “app company” (sorry can’t get used to it, app sounds like a $2 smartphone minigame and only a moron would start to market software that cost several hundred $ as “app”) it is only logical to discard the tool in your portfolio that is mainly used and best suited for screen layouts.

What – it’s the other way round? Print is dying, screen is the future? Well then the only explanation for this move is: The guy that decided to call software like Photoshop an “App” is still on the loose somewhere in the Adobe building.

By dooofus - 3:36 PM on May 7, 2013

“The guy that decided to call software like Photoshop an “App” is still on the loose somewhere in the Adobe building.”

Very funny and you make a good point. The suits are loose!

By Tim - 5:51 AM on May 7, 2013

Hi Adobe,

Thanks for ruining my day! I make use of Fireworks each and every single day in my role as a Senior Web Designer at a fairly sized company. I have over the years moved may designers over to it, across multiple companies and now you drop this bombshell.

Please do tell me, do you plan on making PS easier to work with when it comes to… well just about bloody everything that has to do with actual web design?!? You know the small things, like proper layering without having to use daft masks every 5 minutes. Perhaps proper vector editing and not a seperate cursor just for adjusting a path. Simpley colour selection and gradient fills?

Well, i’m of to go and apologise to all my work mates and give them the happy news that from now on we’ll be using photo-editing software to create websites….

How can you drop an excellent piece of software *without* providing any alternatives?

The only thing I missed was a way to export symbols as svg and styles as CSS. Voilà, you’d have a state of the art HTML5 ready web design software.

By Engel Ayachi - 6:09 AM on May 7, 2013

This decision is so stupide. Fireworks is the best tool for creating websites and mobile apps in a fast and easy way. I work with it just every day.

By Jose V - 6:18 AM on May 7, 2013

While I thought it was cool that Adobe is trying to get into the small little app space with their edge projects, little startups are doing a much better job with these focused tools. Why? Because they listen to the feedback of their users.

Adobe won’t compete in this ecosystem of little apps. I want them to, but they get it wrong. There are many better free tools for responsive design than reflow. It just gets in the way. And now adobe is moving into the hardware realm with a stylus? While this sounds pretty cool, why not look at actual use-cases to determine project needs for your companies success.

There is no other tool like Adobe Fireworks on the market. We don’t need a new pen, we need a way to design for the web. Fireworks still misses the marks in many areas, but it is unfortunately the best tool for designing other than designing in the browser.

Adobe has already lost the hearts and minds of the web development community. Anybody who admits to using Dreamweaver as their primary text-editor seems embarrassed about this code bloated piece of software.

Now, adobe is officially pushing web designers away and killing a tool so many design agencies and freelancers depend on. Not sure who adobe’s target market is, but I keep trying to give them more of my money only to see them slip out of the professional landscape and into some sort of prosumer mediocrity.

Adobe should listen to their customers on this one or they will face a rebranding nightmare that will cheapen their brand, hurt their business and have small startups continually filling in the void with useful pieces of software geared towards customers actual needs. Now is the time for Adobe to prove that it is a company that cares about its customers who have trusted and invested in Adobe.

Jose, what tools do you use exactly for responsive design? Quite frankly, after what Adobe did, I don’t want anything more to do with them, so any alternatives to Adobe progams are welcome.

By Alain - 6:21 AM on May 7, 2013

When acquired Fireworks, Macromedia, I was happy because there would come a better future in the relationship with Photoshop. Now I regret that it have purchased because all they have done is to kill Macromedia products.

You are killing the best product for web design with facilities that do not have any other Adobe program. What will happen? nothing positive for Adobe. Immediately many users angry, decreased sales and other companies develop programs with the philosophy of Fireworks to medium term its users migrate to these new smart companies. By 2020 Adobe will be considered obsolete for web development. Completely losing this market.

By Danno - 6:23 AM on May 7, 2013

Not happy – I’ve really love the workflow in Fireworks. It’s something that just works and does what I want. Dissappointed

By Chris Roberts - 6:25 AM on May 7, 2013

I can’t Really add much to what has already been stated but the only reason I ever touched an adobe product was because they bought out Macromedia, before that point I only used Macromedia tools for web development. I will continue to use FW until current OS’s stop supporting it.

Truly a poor decision on adobes part.

By hensel - 6:33 AM on May 7, 2013

This is really sad.

Fireworks is such a useful tool für prototyping and webdesign. I was hoping to get a update of Fireworks with less bugs (color-picking-bug,…). And now there is no more hope… Which tool do you think could replace Fireworks?

So, how much market research did Adobe do before killing Fireworks? A little? None?

How is it possible a company the size of Adobe and with all the resources at its disposal could so little understand the needs of an important part of its customer base (as is evidenced by the rational and intelligent outcry here)? Does Adobe not know what people (including me) used Fireworks for, and why we pay for CC (Fireworks for me being the #1 reason, DW being #2, AI #3 and then PS and ID much further out)?

As the results of this corporate mis-step pan out over the coming weeks and months I bet Adobe’s investors and shareholders will be none too happy.

Rule #1 in business – listen to your customers. Adobe, do your research!!!! It is not yet too late to reconsider. But you need to act swiftly to cool things down.

By Kevin - 6:42 AM on May 7, 2013

Man…you need to seriously reconsider here Adobe.
What InD is to CMYK—FW is to RGB.
As a director, I’m pissed if a designer comps for print in PS. Use the tool for the job. InD.
Dido for RGB comping—nothing else that I’m aware of even compares to FW for this purpose.
Please, FW deserves better. Don’t totally destroy it please.
Unless you can develop a browser based alternative that writes clean semantic html/css/js instead of the usual frankencode.

By Shawn McGinnis - 6:46 AM on May 7, 2013

I hope they open source FW. A merge with an excellent programmers editor would be excellent.

By Tyler Benton - 6:48 AM on May 7, 2013

Photoshop is good at editing everything related to photo’s (not designing a website)

Illustrator is good at creating mind blowing icons, vector backgrounds, print banners, and other print graphics (not designing a website)

InDesign is good at creating a brochure, magazine layouts(not designing a website)

Dreamweaver is good at coding a website(not designing a website)

Fireworks is great for creating mind blowing icons, editing photos, designing banners(for the web), hell i’ve even created a print ad with it, its also the best application for a fast work flow because you can reuse different elements from a site, and if your job is anything like mine people change there minds all the time and thats why i love symbols because i can go in and edit 1 symbol 1 time and it changes it everywhere throughout the site with out having to rework it on all 50 or 60 different pages. It is by far the best WEB DESIGN application out there, i has everything you need to create a website or app from scratch whether it is for a desktop site, mobile site, Iphone app, Ipad app, or even Android.
The other thing that i loved about fireworks from the first time I started using it was the way that you can group elements together to make it easier to manage layers. Also you can have multiple states of anything so this makes the subtle differences in websites easy to manage. When working with a development team it makes it easy to export out all the information they will need to create the site, it takes out all the guess work that comes with working in photoshop.
All in all fireworks is ahead of its time as far as web design goes, its the only application that handles both vectors and images extremely well. It is also the only application that i have seen that actually understands what web design involves, which is being able to reuse multiple elements on a project via symbols, and the common library.

I also hope someone emerges in the market that is interested in buying fireworks and continues to make the web design community a great community to be apart of.

Incredible. We just transfered all work to Fireworks and now it’s gonna be killed. Absolutely nonsense and no alternative in sight! Maybe Adobe wants to exclude the whole internet design community. Why should we use three or four different mini programs instead of one powerful tool?

By Alex Podolsky - 6:54 AM on May 7, 2013

After three years of use FW prospect of return to PS for me is comparable to the replacement of a car to a horse. I’m crying. I ready to pay 3x more. Fireworks don’t leave me alone.

By Raey - 6:55 AM on May 7, 2013

Just accidently read the news regarding FW… am VERY DISAPPPOINTED with this news !! Adobe should fire those decisionmakers that are probably fans of the bloated PS. Adobe… as you can see … lots of angry people here. It will take more time to complete projects for sure now (wireframesites, designs, etc…) – FW is used for about 75% here!

By Brent - 6:55 AM on May 7, 2013

Love Fireworks. Separate pages (with separate layers) and master pages and symbols and vector and bitmap and export to PDF…All of this makes creating web graphics and web sites so fluid.

Photoshop is great, but not suited for large, complex web sites.

They could raise the price of Fireworks to support its further development and the community would support it.

Really bad timing as we were just about to switch to fireworks for web design.

Our designers hate laying out ideas in Photoshop, and developers we use hate building from illustrator, making fireworks perfect.

Maybe they should have waited until they had made InDesign into a good tool for web design, and then pushed that as the all in one layout package, instead of making people used a photo editing or a vector drawing package for design…. you CAN lay out a web design in Word, but that doesn’t mean its a good way of doing it

By Tyler - 7:09 AM on May 7, 2013

Open source it!

Instead of letting it die, open source it so the community can keep the dream alive!

Open source! Open source! Open source!

Long live FW!

By Steve - 7:10 AM on May 7, 2013

Horrible horrible decision by Adobe management. This app is a vital part of my workflow and I will NEVER abandon it for heavy bloated less-featured Photoshop.

I’ve frequently remarked to recipients of my work, on occasions where they’ve seen very rapid delivery of mockups or ‘clickables,’ that if all software tools (for consumers, for managers, for debuggers[!], for users of Oracle Ebiz, etc) were as advanced as graphics tools, we’d be so much further ahead.

In retrospect, I’m mainly talking about Fireworks. Here’s the short list that makes it so:
• Work in all dimensions: time (‘frames’), space (‘layers’), iterations (‘pages’).
• Support for working across most of those dimension in single actions (mass selection, output across any dimension).
• Pretty good inheritance and hierarchy support (styles, layers and sublayers).
• Visibility, direct manipulation, and all the ‘little things’ of usability, which if you don’t do them are ‘big things.’

By Matthew Pringle - 7:20 AM on May 7, 2013

Photoshop is useless for web design. It expect you to create elements in illustrator which it then loads and anti-alises so badly straight lines are blurred across at least 2 pixels.

Fireworks lets the user create vector layouts but with pixel based precision. Something Photoshop, an image editor and not a layout program, fails to do so badly.

Adobe needs to admit it was wrong when it to make Photoshop work a little more like Fireworks. They failed and are now looking to hurt the professionals once again.

I wish Adobe had not bought Macromedia. Macromedia’s products were always advancing, were the best one the market and made Adobe look second rate. Releasing Photoshop every year with small improvements is a scam.

Adobe took Macromedia and instead of becoming greater then the two parts became something worse than either.

Really sad to hear this, I think this is a big mistake on Adobe’s part. There is no other Adobe tool that will replace the functionality that currently exists in Fireworks.

By Dario - 7:28 AM on May 7, 2013

a mio modesto parere è una scelta sbagliata che si poteva evitare

By Carlos Lopez - 7:31 AM on May 7, 2013

Stop the Dreamweaver development… dreamweaver is stupid program in the real world… Fireworks is really useful

By Si - 7:35 AM on May 7, 2013

Ok, this is infuriating. I was an avid Photoshop fan, using it exclusively for designing user interfaces (3+ years) and I made the switch to Fireworks on a recommendation… and have never looked back. I use it everyday professionally for UI design, prototyping, presentations, general image editing etc and I have seen (many many times) considerable workflow advantages when I have paired with other designers who are still battling with Photoshop. So now what? Open source it? I just can’t see Adobe doing this as there is a real threat of cannibalising their alternative applications (PS, Illustrator etc) which we are being inadvertently cajoled into switching to (one could argue), but we can all dream right? I mean, with such an engaged, passionate user base the potential for creating something special is most definitely there; but I just can’t see it happening. I share many of the frustrations being expressed in these comments… It is frustrating when you legitimately purchase a tool, invest countless hours of your precious time learning it, teaching it to others, evangelising about it (not keen on this word, but there you go) and engaging with a wider user community of users and then somebody decides to chuck it in the trash. But hey, that’s the way it goes right! Maybe if we all got behind open source alternatives this type of shafting could be avoided potentially.

By Brittany - 7:40 AM on May 7, 2013

This is very disappointing. Please review the process of UI/UX design for the web and understand that although Photoshop is a powerful graphics tool, the quick design of concept and UI/UX graphic illustrations for the web are not what that product focuses most on. The products is far better suited for print in my opinion. I sure hope you come up with a product that is designed to do what Fireworks does do for web development design.

By Mw - 7:42 AM on May 7, 2013

Wow… Total idiots. This is a tool that a smart co. would have seen as their future. Adobe, you’ve messed up big. Yes we need new tools – but to replace fireworks and not as a blatant lie to cover up adobe’s inept vision.

By Raey - 7:47 AM on May 7, 2013

***** Dear moderator of this blog – just click on the print button (beware to put enough paper in the printer first) – then just go to the office of the teamleader who is responsible for this decision – and place these papers in front of his desk gently… we (10000’s of unhappy clients) would definately appreciate your action ******

This is a sad day. The mix of vector/bitmap in fireworks was unique, and perfectly suited for web design. So many bits of functionality I’ll miss, and I certainly won’t be moving to photoshop, I’ll try finding something else instead.

Couldn’t you open source it or something?

By Paul - 8:00 AM on May 7, 2013

I am so angry and furious… I’d like to use every swear word for Adobe. Fireworks was and still is THE best tool for web graphics. Why do you force such awfull tools like Photoshop and Illustrator on the web community?

So… not even a free “switch” course? You must be joking, it just proves your customer disrespect.

Go Fireworks!!! <3 <3

By CoderDJ412 - 8:05 AM on May 7, 2013

This is very sad news!

I was hoping they made an Extensis panel for FIreworks so you can test fonts on your comps but, I guess that will never happen!

Okay I’ll admit it, I never used to pay for my Adobe products, and I’m 100% sure that most other junior designers my age didn’t either… that was, until Adobe launched Creative Cloud, then I decided that I’d better my career and pay for the *product* that I use. Fireworks was the only reason I did this. Yeah Photoshop has its uses but it’s really nothing compared with the simplicity and ease-of-use that Fw has to offer for web design.

I’ve been thinking for a while about moving to Sketch (http://www.bohemiancoding.com/sketch/) and moving away from Creative Cloud. Now, with this foolish, careless and idiotic decision…. I can finally hammer that last nail into the Adobe coffin.

P.S Who uses Dreamweaver? either? drop that too. FAR more powerful AND FREE tools such as Sublime Text.

Good bye Adobe

By William R. Cousert - 8:09 AM on May 7, 2013

Why didn’t Adobe merge Fireworks into Photoshop when they first acquired Macromedia? I really don’t see the point in supporting two competing image editing packages.

You really can’t stop developing Fireworks.
There is no comparable software to it. I don’t want to create my designs in Photoshop.

By marc - 8:14 AM on May 7, 2013

just shows that adobe still don’t have a clue of the publishing future. fireworks was their only native tool for designing the web. the rest is 30 years old software. reflow is a niche product with bad ux.

By Jack - 8:14 AM on May 7, 2013

Such a shame

By Webmunki - 8:24 AM on May 7, 2013

Since 1998 I have exclusively used Fireworks for all of my graphics work.
It is hands down, the most efficient and versatile tool in my arsenal.

The ONLY reason I am an Adobe customer is because of the Macromedia-based products I’ve used for the last 15 years.

Nothing else.

I have designed/created literally hundreds of websites with this tool, thousands of graphic bits to incorporate into Flash sites or banners, dozens of print ads (yes, print ads).

Poor decision Adobe.

I have the choice right now of whether or not to subscribe to CC or to buy the last round of CS as a stand alone purchase. To get, have, and retain the proper tools for my staff (given it is what they and the other professionals we collaborate with ALL know and use DAILY) I will make the purchase rather than move to subscription – that will likely be the last time you see any of my money.

By Brian MacDougall - 8:25 AM on May 7, 2013

Shouldn’t the headline be “Photoshop to Become Even More Bloated”?

By Pam Scott - 8:30 AM on May 7, 2013

This is terrbile news indeed. ADOBE… did you do your research to find out why people use Fireworks over PhotoShop????? I use Fireworks for wireframing and task flows. There is NO WAY I will use PS for that. In fact, every time I HAVE to open PS I get very frustrated that it isn’t simple to use… like FW. I see PS as a graphics tool. Maybe, instead of letting your executives drive your feature set, you should rely on your users. This might be just what your competitors have been waiting for.

By Igor - 8:35 AM on May 7, 2013

That’s the worst news I could imagine. I’ve been using FW for ~12 years now. It’s still the most effective way to design a website. Tried Ps several times but it didn’t work. Fw is more intuitive and it supports the way I design things. Too bad Adobe – CS6 is the last product I bought.

By Kevin - 8:35 AM on May 7, 2013

TIME TO MOVE TO QUARTZ COMPOSER
That’s what FaceBook used to create Android Home siting FW-esque functionality that simply isn’t available in PS. It’s part of Apple’s Free X Code Developer Tools.

Adobe this is just a #FAIL! You are losing your credibility in the design and webdeveloper community and if you understand just a little bit of marketing & worth of mouth , you should know that if your customers start hating your brand instead of loving it, you have a problem..

I was once a fan and loyal customer. Then you stopped developing Homesite, Authorware and now Fireworks.. All great products and all that is left is real “crap”. Sorry to say that, but you are doing it wrong.. History will tell us if it was a good decision but 10 years from now I see no bright future for your brand..

I have been a huge advocate for Fireworks. I’ve been working as a web designer for 15 years and have worked at most of the leading design and advertising agencies in New York City, San Francisco and in Europe. I can hands down say that having been taught to use Photoshop in college, but then later learning Fireworks about 12 years ago, it is much more efficient and has helped me create a reputation in the industry as an extremely fast and efficient designer. Can I use Photoshop for the same tasks? Yes, naturally I can but it takes someone who is an expert in both sometimes 5x as long for the same task. As well, I can build entire websites in Fireworks with 20 screens and create a file that is literally the same file size as 1 screen in Photoshop. Why is Photoshop so inefficient in how it compresses graphics? I’m not an engineer so I cannot answer this question. Photoshop simply does not handle vector objects, compression or allow a designer to be as flexible while designing and it never has. I hoped that Photoshop would start to bring in some of the beauties and features of Fireworks after the Adobe acquisition, but this has not really happened. Yes, they support vector objects better than they used to, is it as efficient as Fireworks years later, sadly no. I say to the engineers who have built and supported versions of each product, please do not take Fireworks off the market since as of now, you do not have a product as great for web designers. The future of design is digital and now you are not supporting a product that is the absolute best for web designers, this I do not understand. I hope that Adobe does some serious user research before making this decision because I think if they spoke with the web design industry, they would understand why Fireworks is so beloved by anyone who has bothered to learn it.

I have been using Fireworks as my primary web layout/prototyping/graphics/UI/UX tool for the better part of the last 15 years. While it was becoming increasingly clear that Fireworks was on Adobe’s chopping block, I had sincerely hoped that the company would find some way to continue development or, at the very least, roll its myriad and diverse functionality into another application aimed at the same market. Unfortunately, it looks like Adobe is killing Fireworks with no capable successor in place. Photoshop is great for photo editing/retouching and graphics design/manipulation, but it is, at best, awkward as a layout tool and terrible as a web/app layout tool.

Throughout the years, I have thoroughly enjoyed working with Fireworks as my primary design tool. It’s sad that Adobe never had the foresight to commit to this product, as I think they missed an opportunity to build a premier tool for the emerging mobile and web app development community.

By jef - 9:00 AM on May 7, 2013

Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

So now i have to use 4 different tools to almost do what Fireworks did perfectly? (even with the bugs) Please at least roll in some of the FW tools into Illustrator… like a FW bitmap view or something.

Count me as another professional designer who depended on Fireworks for all things pixels, including visual and interaction design for web, mobile, and desktop applications. I will be moving on to Bohemian Coding’s Sketch and Tumult’s Hype as Adobe’s other tools are poorly suited to interface design.

By Eli - 9:09 AM on May 7, 2013

Axing FW seems to do with internal politics more than user centered decision.

Being a UX design company we use FW to efficiently layout and manipulate existed content. We need a tool with publishing and vector manipulation abilities with an option to use PS plugins to occasionally edit images and apply effects. Throw in ability to re-use external symbol libraries and you have an winner.

FW is the only software on the market that has a full workflow for web/app designers: Wireframes-Clickable Prototype-Skin Design-CSS.

Edge thoughts: Our designers don’t write code during design process, which makes Edge solutions pretty useless. We have CSS/HTML developers that do that smarter and more efficient than any tool.

Edge solutions are oriented to freelance designers and small companies that can’t afford a developer. For a bigger business there is no workflow that Adobe offers.

Looks like folks at Axure had a good day yesterday.

By Cait - 9:09 AM on May 7, 2013

Fireworks is much more efficient at accomplishing simple tasks is much more intuitive than photoshop and illustrator. Without this tool, we will need to use two more programs to accomplish the same tasks, with higher file size and longer workflows. This is very upsetting news.

I have used the best app for webdesign since its realease in the 90s. I think this is a mistake to discontinue Fireworks. It is irresponsible and lazy of Abobe to make this decision.

I use Photoshop for large format image editing as it was intended. I find Photoshop counter-intuitive and inaccurate (pixels). Image compression does not work as well as Fireworks.

Using Vectors in Photoshop is terrible, Direct selection of objects in Fireworks is so much better.

I feel that Adobe is manipulating the Web Community for financial gains forcing us compremise with software like Photoshop and Illustrator. I never though I would see the day where I have to use a sledge hammer to attempt to knock in a a nail. Apps like Illustrator and Photoshop are used as that was all that initially was available.

I am angry and disappointed, Yet another reason to look to alternatives other than ADOBE products.

By Duluoz - 9:14 AM on May 7, 2013

Dear Fireworks advocates – you are NOT the future of web development professionals.

You are not even a blip on Adobe’s radar anymore. You are a dying, lethargic, fickle group, stuck in workflow patterns that have died off in favor or a more modular and more efficient alternatives. You can cry all you want; even sign petitions. This is not a focus of Adobe any further. It’s never coming back. You must adapt and improve your knowledge and tools.

Be professionals. Be adaptive. Try new workflows. You will come out on top and see this passing of Fireworks as a new dawn towards your advancement in web design and development. You may even catch up to the rest of the evolving field of web professionals.

By Duluoz - 9:28 AM on May 7, 2013

Also – don’t forget that you can still use Fireworks for as long as you want in it’s current version. It just won’t be developed any further.

Web design/development is a fast moving stream. Stay in and go with the flow and continue your career paths or get out and find another.

By Cristiano - 11:01 AM on May 8, 2013

It’s crystal clear you use Photoshop.

By Webmunki - 9:29 AM on May 7, 2013

Troll much?

This tool accounts for the creation of a huge percentage (the greater percentage I’d bet) of what our collective online experiences are.

By Ozgur - 9:30 AM on May 7, 2013

Hey,
What r u talking about? I am an UX/UI Designer for web based appliciations also former front-end developer. I m not an idiot.

I know how web design. So we all say that we need FW, it is acceptable to use modular tools. Use something to design, use another thing for wireframing. Fireworks is a tool that fits for designing for web and mobile. We are not desiging posters or books or art staff. If Adobe hasn’t a dinosaur vision, it must kill DW, developers dont use it.

Probably it won’t happen but it comes to prove, again, FW is the tool many designers want and all should use.

bye bye Adobe!

By pamsc - 9:36 AM on May 7, 2013

so tell us, all knowledgeable Duluoz… what is the “future of web development”? Surely you are privy to some super top secret web tool of the future that all of us “stuck” in FW are too “lethargic” to consider.

Sorry to be so “fickle”… but I just can’t help it. And tonight I will go home and “cry” for hours because I am not “professional” and my life will end with FW because after being a designer for 13 years, I don’t know how to “adapt” and “try new things”. What ever will I do?

By Geertje Zwitserlood - 11:40 AM on May 7, 2013

Oh mister, if you know all beter come on and share your brave and revolutionary tools. Just let the answer not be photoshop Or any other Adobe crapware for that matter.

Reading through this blog the same benefits are repeatedly mentioned by Designers of how good Fireworks it. Can Adobe really not afford to suprt this community. there are hundreds of thousands of talented Designers who insist on Fireworks!

Adobe should reconsider!

By cometlinear - 9:27 AM on May 7, 2013

Duluoz:

Do you even have much experience in this field? You sound like you have no clue what you’re talking about.

Fireworks is a hybrid vector/raster program, which means you get the power of both. It’s the best tool for making interfaces. It’s competitor Photoshop is actually a photo-editing tool which was not originally intended for graphic design.

By Jarek - 9:35 AM on May 7, 2013

I challenge any one to 1v1… Fireworks to the program of their choosing to mock up the site of their choosing. Speed and quality matter.

It makes me sad to see the terrible logic of (1) there is increasing overlap between behemoth products like Photoshop and Illustrator with Fireworks, (2) Adobe is focusing on smaller tools, therefore (3) we have decided to kill the smaller, focused tool (Fireworks).

Of course this wasn’t a big surprise, and I had assumed that the end of Fireworks was only a matter of time, but I am surprised by the callousness of this announcement toward the userbase. There is no encouragement that Adobe understands why some people use and love Fireworks, that Adobe is actively working to take the best concepts of Fireworks and bring them to other new or existing tools in the suite, or that Adobe will help Fireworks users transition to new/better workflows.

No, the clear message is: we are tired of maintaining this product that we never understood or invested in. You can keep using it until it breaks if you want, and get over it already.

So, what is the Adobe tool built specifically for people who draw things for screens? As far as I can tell, they don’t have one anymore. For me, that means it’s probably time to move on to better (and cheaper) alternatives.

By Isabel - 2:48 AM on May 8, 2013

They are convinced Illustrator does the job, but what they don’t understand is that Illustrator is a piece of wiked over complicated software which delivers worse results for illustration purposes that “poor thing” Fireworks.

They do not get that it does not have to be so over complicated and unintuitive to be able to deliver great results.

I think they never wondered why most of the people make icons and stuff in Photoshop (or Fireworks) instead of using Illustrator, their so called illustration tool.

Well, one of the reasons why is that Illustrator is over complicated and quite rough in its results when compared to the fine results Fireworks can achieve when talking vector illustration.

Terrible News! But not a surprise when looking at Adobe’s appreciation for the community.

By Cristiano - 11:09 AM on May 8, 2013

We don’t have to use their tools… cmon!

It is just a matter of standards the fact that many job specs would ask you to use Photoshop for UI, written by uneducated people on the field or by designers that have no clue on the benefits of Fireworks.

We do not have to use Adobe’s software.

Even if they ask you to, only a moron would say yes to pay for something that has been proved worse and much more expensive. Even in a big company productivity is appreciated and Fireworks is also king at that. Saving time is saving money.

Educate the rest. Is the only way to get better.

By Sigi - 9:54 AM on May 7, 2013

Terrible News! But not a surprise when looking at Adobe’s appreciation for the community over the last years.

By Peter - 10:02 AM on May 7, 2013

What a horrible move by Adobe. Why don’t you allow your clientele dictate where the company goes rather then a few suits who have no idea what to do on a computer other then check their email.

If you think for one second that by killing FW will push people towards your other products and thus make you more money you’re sadly mistaken!!! You have NO ALTERNATIVE PRODUCT TO FIREWORKS. No, I will not pay hundreds more to use Photoshop or illustrator, shove it up your a$$, I’m done with Adobe.

By Kevin - 10:13 AM on May 7, 2013

Ridiculous decision by Adobe. Fireworks is the only adobe product I use every single day. I have used Fireworks from its inception and its the perfect program for so many uses. It has served me and my two companies very well.

Adobe, if you ever listen to your customer base, this is the time. In my case, I do not want what Photoshop and Illustrator offer. It’s the one reason my business’s have 8 subscriptions to Creative Cloud.

And based on the comments to this article, you are obviously effecting your customer base in a negative way.

By chris - 10:15 AM on May 7, 2013

good riddance. but please make photoshop better for web design then.

By Cristiano - 11:21 AM on May 8, 2013

oh yes Adobe please, and make Photoshop also capable of taking me to the future with 2 or 3 clicks through the layers panel after showing me 3 or 4 dialog windows and clicking all the checkboxes to get the darn thing done, so this way I could probably get to see those wonderful tools Duluoz talks about and I’ll feel like a real modern up to date designer.

It is sad to see a big company like Adobe completely ignore it’s user base. I use Adobe Fireworks on a daily basis and would pay thousands for this ONE PIECE of software. Not willing to join the Creative Cloud, even if it was $1 to join, since it adds no value to me what so ever.

Using Photoshop for client mock-ups is like trying to use Dreamweaver to make a website, ( SO OUT OF DATE and would take FOREVER! ) now that better alternatives like WordPress have made the process faster, easier, and more efficient, I have never looked back.

If Adobe would stop and LISTEN and bring their big head down from the cloud, maybe they would reconsider and sell it or allow it to be open source. There is a big community that IS VERY PASSIONATE and apparently they know this and don’t care.

Fireworks is so misunderstood, and even though it is the under dog when it comes to speed, workflow, and ease of use, Photoshop is no where near the performance of Fireworks.

Photoshop is a PHOTO editing software, not a UI tool, and without Fireworks now you do not have a web design tool. Now with the big focus on the mobile web it is Fireworks opportunity to shine. If you are not going to continue to support it, it would have been nice to announce an alternative and not just leave it’s users hanging. Horrible idea!

The future of Adobe is not very bright and ignoring it’s users it is on a fast road to nowhere. I give it 5 – 10 years, and they will be the next Microsoft, overtaken by Google. Bam! Just like that.

By Michael Connors - 11:27 AM on May 7, 2013

I completely agree. There are so many things that FW allows designers to do more efficiently than other applications. Clearly, there are many more tools today than before. However, FW has from the beginning, been my tool of choice.

It is very unfortunate that Adobe doesn’t see the role that it plays in the workflow of a large percentage of professional designers, many who are contributing to a beautiful and useful web. And that they can’t find a way to keep it alive.

I think fireworks is a great tool for creating layouts and User inferface but photoshop has overcome its shortcomings becoming a alternitiva valid in conjunction with dreamweaver

By Geertje Zwitserlood - 11:31 AM on May 7, 2013

I just can’t believe this decision! Fireworks is the best tool for making web graphics. How come Adobe doesn’t see it? I’m not sure what they are smoking… There is no good alternative for Fireworks and yet they kill it. Asking me to use Photoshop to create web graphics is mad! Photoshop is SO user unfriendly!!!! Why do they keep on investing in crappy tools and ignore what people really need? Were we ever asked?????

By Alistair - 11:42 AM on May 7, 2013

This is terrible news for many many people, myself included. How can they stop developing this amazing product!

Really sad about your decision Adobe!

By Mason - 11:52 AM on May 7, 2013

I always “reach” for the faster tool. For web design mockups, it’s Fireworks. I have done a couple of rockin’ face swaps in Photoshop, though.

By Ugli Putz - 11:56 AM on May 7, 2013

Working in the cloud? No more FW?

Bye bye Adobe, you lost a paying CS4, CS5 & CS6 customer this minute.
Hopefully I will never have to see you again.

We are active CC subscriber and have been upgrading our several CS licences since Adobe bought MM. As funny as it sounds we use FW 95% of the time. Illustrator and PS are used to open various files from clients or manipulate large images.

We use FW for layout and wireframing. We’ve designed countless pixel perfect icons for iOS and Android. Basically anything one need to design a UI can be easier done in FW than in any other Adobe product.

We know PS, inDesign and AI inside-out. None of them is getting close to FW for UI design. Managing layers in PS is a tedious enervating process. Pages=Layer Folders workflow is an ugly workaround for UI design. AI artboards don’t have enough functionality to be used for UI as FW pages, not to mention States.

We’d pay CC subscription just for FW and even much more for an app that is properly supported. The moment Sketch has symbols/pages support we’ll have almost no reasons to stay with Adobe.

By Dan - 12:32 PM on May 7, 2013

I feel like I just got dumped, but knew it was coming for years. She didn’t know what she had going, kept coming home smelling like a Jersey Shore dj. I guess I’ll have to stop seeing her friend Dreamweaver too, that complicated, over talkative diva.

Actually, I’m glad adobe finally said something about Fireworks instead of dragging users into a dead end. I still think of Fireworks as Macromedia Fireworks. I still think of Fireworks as a religion. I found Fireworks after becoming frustrated with how much time i spent in Photoshop designing user interfaces. Once Adobe sued Macromedia for “panel grouping” I immediately stopped using Adobe products and switched to only macromedia products specifically fireworks. I was so pissed at Adobe for f@#$ing the user over competition. At the time I was using fireworks for slicing designs while i was making the transition. This was in 1998 when Fireworks first came out in the wild. The Macromedia hired me to work in support supporting studio8 products while staying on top of the fireworks alpha/beta community since no one else was at macromedia/adobe. I was like cool, then I transitioned onto the fireworks team and helped out across the board in engineering to product management to community outreach to R&D to evangelizing at launch in the press. I cared so much about the product I did everything I could. The time for to quit adobe when I attended a biz dev meeting with creative suite product managers. I finally saw adobe really was and became really unhappy. After repeating the battle each year and fighting to keep just a couple engineers on the product I quit adobe. Im not bound by “golden shackles” nor do I have kids to support so I left with a quickness to start my own game studio business with a 5 year plan to build a kick ass piece of design software that will last for the rest of my life and hopefully many others. Please sign up to be notified when we are ready to share our new tool codenamed: Underdog http://goo.gl/kyN44

Adobe what have you done you just killed the design tool for webdesign, why??? Did you ever made a lay-out of a website in photoshop? You better did than you never would have killed Fireworks. Fireworks was my tool to design websites so easy, so powerfull, what i’m i gonne mis thos pages and states, those beautiful vectors, the parameters x and y, and much more… snap to pixel… everything was so sharp.
WHAT A SHAME! I HATE YOU ADOBE! YOU DON’T KNOW THE NEEDS OF A REAL WEBDESIGNER!

By Steven - 12:57 PM on May 7, 2013

Adobe what have you done you just killed the design tool for webdesign, why??? Did you ever made a lay-out of a website in photoshop? You better did than you never would have killed Fireworks. Fireworks was my tool to design websites so easy, so powerfull, what i’m i gonne mis thos pages and states, those beautiful vectors, the parameters x and y, and much more… snap to pixel… everything was so sharp.
Why oh why Fireworks i’m gonna mis you so much! I hope you will come back! Please Adobe give it a try!

By Michiel Vermeulen - 1:17 PM on May 7, 2013

Well bye bye Adobe. You just killed the best tool for web prototypes and web graphics. You talk about overlap, sorry I don’t see any. And using Photoshop or Illustrator for the web? Seriously, what a joke. I would laugh if I wouldnt cry.

By Ozgur - 1:20 PM on May 7, 2013

As a former front-end developer and UX/UI Designer we would like to hear the announcement of desinging next generation “web design, prototyping, application” via Fireworks CC from you.

After your blog update, I can say that I couldnt get your solution path clearly, sorry.

Fireworks is the center of web design process not PS. Becasue of its hybrid nature and easy to use speciality which PS does not have. Consider this.

The reason fireworks is awesome is because we can wrieframe, prototype and finish/retouch the UI in same application. There is no need to rebuild the UI in each stage of product development.

Responsive is what we design now, but it doesn’t mean you should kill fireworks when reflow is still a prototype (beta) for prototype.

By Ben Johnson - 1:32 PM on May 7, 2013

Learning Photoshop for web design is a huge investment in time and frustration.
Putting up with popups, learning how to handle layers and de-contextualized controls, not being able to directly interact with the elements you are working with.

No wonder people are afraid of leaving Photoshop! They worry it will be as bad as re-learning Photoshop!

I believe that’s a reason Photoshop users often are so religious about it and unwilling to try something better (read: Fireworks).

I believe that since people cling to Photoshop, Adobe thinks that’s what’s good, that’s what people want. If only Apple could have taken care of Fireworks, at least they know not to listen to people wanting a faster horse!

If Adobe made the iPhone it would have been a Nokia 3310 but smaller.

By andreas - 1:43 PM on May 7, 2013

Use Fireworks for web design and nothing comes close to it. Such a cool programme !!

i wish Macromedia was still around at least they would not have dropped Fireworks :((

By Chad - 1:49 PM on May 7, 2013

I’ve put this behind me already. I bought Sketch for Mac. Will be switching to it after my current FW project is completed.

FareWell FireWorks

By Joey - 1:55 PM on May 7, 2013

I’ve lots to say but it’s no use; money is your customer you care about; With the advent of CC philosophy I’m shifting away from new versions; Can make it on my CS5 premium, I WAS going to update it to CS7 so if CC is the only option then sorry, I’m out.

Sad day. Adobe doesn’t care about web designers. Fireworks is a tool for the real work not for the wow effect.

Bye Bye Adobe.

By d - 2:07 PM on May 7, 2013

This has nothing to do with designers, workflow or the web. It has everything to do with profit. Adobe obviously feels like fireworks was not making them enough money so they are no longer developing it.

It also seems like a move to push their convoluted web design in-a-box programs like Muse and Dreamweaver. There’s not a pro in the industry that use those apps, but they must be big sellers with wannabe novice designers and developers.

d.

By Ryan - 2:15 PM on May 7, 2013

The main thing Adobe doesn’t seem to understand is that no developer is ever going to use their auto-generated code. They are making products for pro-sumers, not professionals. I don’t want Fireworks to export code and all that garbage, that’s wasted time. I want Fireworks to be a good pixel perfect layout and prototyping tool, which is what it was.

By Kevin - 2:22 PM on May 7, 2013

Amen.

By guy - 2:38 AM on May 8, 2013

Amen Amen.

By disgruntled - 5:49 AM on May 10, 2013

absolutely spot on.

By Kevin - 2:30 PM on May 7, 2013

No No NO Adobe… Noooooo…..

I use Illustrator, I use Photoshop…..but I NEED Fireworks as I am a Web Designer…..

How can you do this to me???? you gave no answers… What am I supposed to use now???

I am VERY upset, VERY!!!

By Phil - 2:31 PM on May 7, 2013

Well, the blog “update” is all a little bit too little too late especially as there was no “we hear you, and we have changed our minds and will continue with Fireworks” statement – it is always what is not said…. So, I have just bought Sketch (has a good price point) and will see how I get on with it. If I get on with that, then I will look for alternatives to the other CC tools I use and see if I can save some money at the same time as stimulating the competition (which is mainly always good for markets). Maybe this was the jolt I needed. Likewise, maybe the community response to Adobe will be the jolt it needs not to get too complacent about its user base. But, it would seem it is going to have to make some quick decisions to prevent this further unravelling.

“Designing for the screen in 2013 is incredibly different to designing for the screen in 1998.” This is absolutely correct. Now mobile is more important than ever. Fireworks allows us to create mobile prototypes and UI elements to create mobile applications and more. What other Adobe product is out there that enables us to do this?

And although the design process is completely different, PEOPLE are still the same. We want something easy, and intuitive. Like the iphone, SIMPLICITY MATTERS!! Fireworks is SIMPLE!! You can click and move things and re-size them, without having to deal with layers and locking and unlocking things. SIMPLICITY and FOCUS is what it offers.

I used Muse, and it’s such a joke! Seriously, who is getting paid to develop these ” new and useless” products? No serious web developer / designer is using Muse, if you are please voice your opinion so that we can all point and laugh.

We are NOT interested in a program that writes the code for us, we have WordPress! We need prototyping tools that help us create a UI easily and quickly. And allow us to focus on the mobile web, something that is SIMPLE to use and INTUITIVE, like FIREWORKS!

By Cristiano - 11:34 AM on May 8, 2013

Bravo!

By Jose V - 3:00 PM on May 7, 2013

Talk about patronizing:

“Designing for the screen in 2013 is incredibly different to designing for the screen in 1998. As we considered adding new capabilities to Fireworks, we came to the conclusion that creating new, task-focused tools would better enable us to meet the future needs of web designers and developers.”

This response is patronizing and out of touch with why people use Adobe Fireworks. It assumes Fireworks users are a breed from the past hanging on to static fixed width layouts.

Adobe Fireworks users are living in 2013. They are mobile designers, responsive designers and user interface designers. Those who code, have long ago found better tools for web development.

WIth each release of a tool like Adobe Muse, it is Adobe who is living in 1998, not its customers. You have a rich opportunity to learn from your customers and finally listen to feedback. Over 500 comments in one day should be providing you with some rich feedback already that hopefully reaches not just the bean counters, but the people who get to work on project development and make decisions.

And I really wanted to like your new task focused tools, but every one was really disappointing, yet I remained a loyal and dedicated customer for one reason and one reason only, Adobe Fireworks.

By dooofus - 3:06 PM on May 7, 2013

Wow. Killing the only specialized web graphics program in the era of mobile and turning the software used by many underpaid designers into a perpetual money pit.

I completely agree! Mobile is a huge focus right now and Fireworks is the PERFECT tool to make the mobile web beautiful.

PS: Hope your name is not Dooofus, as you seem to be smart if you’re a Fireworks user : )

By Ozgur - 3:14 PM on May 7, 2013

As you stated your Edge Reflow page, you want to force us to use PS;

Coming soon

Edge Reflow CC (Preview) allows you to create beautiful, responsive designs. A new assets management system and integration with Typekit will enhance your workflow and allow you to manage your projects more efficiently. Deep integration between Edge Reflow and Photoshop CC will soon provide seamless web design workflow. Stay tuned for updates.

PS is fat and will blow up.

By Josh Greenwald - 3:17 PM on May 7, 2013

“Adobe has embarked on creating a new collection of tools and services aimed at addressing the needs of today’s web designer”

And FW did a great job at that. Why are you keeping Dreamweaver? Flash? All those Muse and Edge jokes?

“we’ve started with focusing on responsive layout, web animation and HTML, CSS and JavaScript code editing and are delivering new Edge tools to address these use cases.”

We need SKETCH TOOLS and EDITING TOOLS, not web design tools! We code with text and make quick visualizations or polished assets with FIREWORKS!

“We are actively working on next-generation solutions for screen design and prototyping that we hope our existing Fireworks customers will love.”

The FW community will leave you (for Sketch 2 and such apps) if you ditch FW. Why fix it if it’s not broken?

“The show of support for Fireworks from the community has reaffirmed our belief that Adobe should continue to deliver dedicated tools for web designers – what follows Fireworks CS6 will be an revolutionary leap, designed from the ground up with the needs of the modern web designer front and center.”

Nice try to calm people down… Why would we believe this when you haven’t shown us anything?

“To do this we need your help.”

OK

“We’d love to hear about how you work”

With Fireworks cause it’s quick, elegant, simple, intuitive, full of amazing details that you just can’t rebuild into another program any time soon. With code editors because that’s how you write code.

“what challenges you face,”

Money loving corporations closing down great apps because they don’t know how to communicate what their tools do, because they don’t think a tool can have potential if it doesn’t pay as well as Photoshop right away.

“where you experience the most pain in your day to day design processes.”

“Designing for the screen in 2013 is incredibly different to designing for the screen in 1998.” is exactly why we need Fireworks. This is why web and UX designers used Fireworks because it allowed their workflow to revolve around the browser not the graphic’s editor.

Fireworks got out of your way, and got you to the browser as quick as possible.

Though I am not surprised to see Adobe let Fireworks just die – with no viable alternative, I am upset that there is no real substitute on the market.

What started out as an animation tool with Macromedia was Co-opted by Adobe as an Interaction Design tool. Adobe may be great at print, video, and the web, but interaction designers don’t have any tools made specifically for them. We Interaction designers are left to use tools made for other purposes, like photoshop or illustrator. Flash Catalyst tried and failed to fill the void in Adobe’s portfolio, but alas, it looks like Adobe has given up.

Sketch is the closest to supplanting fireworks, but I don’t see its development moving fast enough. And there are many features still missing from sketch, and any other app in the market. Here is what made Fireworks so special, and what I’d like to see incorporated into current apps, or a new app at that:

1. Shared layers
Sharing a layer is more versatile and efficient than merely copying and pasting objects from page to page because shared layers maintain consistency. This is a huge time-saver because common elements that appear across many pages can be changed once and updated across the entire project in one click! Share a layer if you want the same objects to appear across pages consistently (known as “object persistence”)

2. Page based document structure
By their very nature, interactive documents require multiple pages. Pages in website design (and screens in app design) are a fundamental unit of interaction, because they contain the content that users navigate to throughout the application. (multiple art boards in Illustrator, as they are implemented today, are not yet a viable alternative.)

3. Vector Drawing tools (but also friendly to bitmaps)
Fireworks ability to live in the raster and vector worlds is unmatched anywhere else, and allowed for a flexible way to create visual content. Vector graphics are especially advantageous because they allow for non-destructive editing; and for the most part, the nature of vectors forces you to maintain low to medium fidelity – key for wire framing.

4. Symbols
A symbol in Fireworks is a special kind of reusable graphic element — think of it as a master version of a graphic. Use a symbol whenever you will be repeatedly using a graphic, such as a logo. The advantage is that copies of a symbol (called symbol “instances”) will all be linked to the original; so, when properties of the original instance are changed, the other instances will change automatically.

5. The common library and Object Library
Think of this in a similar way to how stencils are used in Omnigraffle. These are reusable components that are formed from groups of objects you want to reuse multiple times in one document or share across documents.

6. Integrated Interactivity
The ability to create hotspots and draw within one app is huge. Click throughs are a breeze to create in Fireworks.

Please bring these features back to an Adobe application, or many interaction designers will be searching outside Adobe for their solutions. Omnigraffle and sketch seem like my best bets at the moment. Adobe, I am disappointed.

Fireworks made designing more fun -> when you have fun you learn more -> when you learn more you get better.

Adobe, change your minds now.

By Isabel - 6:15 AM on May 8, 2013

Well said.

By JD - 4:07 PM on May 7, 2013

OK… this really takes the cake…

“Designing for the screen in 2013 is incredibly different to designing for the screen in 1998. As we considered adding new capabilities to Fireworks, we came to the conclusion that creating new, task-focused tools would better enable us to meet the future needs of web designers and developers.”

This is true, things are different. However, the people posting here and the many more who remain silent are designing/developing for today’s screens using FIREWORKS. It is their main tool for wireframing, prototyping and design. They are telling you Fireworks IS the best tool for the job for today’s workflow.

Also…

“Adobe has embarked on creating a new collection of tools and services aimed at addressing the needs of today’s web designer”.

Why do we need a “collection” of tools when we had a solid one (yes, one). Does that not simply complicate/hinder/slow the workflow process? Why would we want to do this? What workflow are you talking about that will be better for “today’s web designer”?

Your statements above are patronizing and shows that you are NOT listening to your customers. Fireworks is “THE” UX/UI tool for many of us. Its very sad that it now has become the Adobe way or the highway.

I will move on, Adobe. I see no need to continue with Adobe products as they no longer fit within my definition of what “today’s web designer” needs.

Well this is a bizarre move. I thought the Fireworks user base was growing?

I’ve been converting designers from using Photoshop to Fireworks for years. Once you show them how fast you can put together a design with it’s great mix of vector and bitmap editing and the use of shared layers, symbols etc. Plus it’s great export and optimization. They never look back!

I still turn to Photoshop for creating composite images etc, but what am I going to turn to in the future for app and web design? I know I can use Photoshop, but it’s like using a knife as a screw driver.

By Cristiano - 11:39 AM on May 8, 2013

They want us to pay pay and pay for Photoshop.

Adobe, I want you t ride ride and ride a bike with no seat.

By Ozgur - 4:24 PM on May 7, 2013

I have been waiting some revolutinary updates regarding FW for years, it is a shame to hear your decision today;

It wll be enough to keep/add these features, no need to split it lots of tiny applications

Not sure what to make of this. Can’t really imagine a world without Fireworks 😉

If you are really planning on discontinuing Fireworks then please at least make it open source. This would send a message that you do care about your customers. Or perhaps you can sell it to another company. I’d be more than happy to drop $300 on funding a Kickstarter project to revive it.

I’ve tried so called alternatives and the only one that comes close to Fireworks is Sketch for Mac. In certain aspects it’s even better but it’s missing quite a bit of functionality before I could consider it a real alternative (hopefully it will get there); plus I don’t like to invest in software that is run by a one-man-show… just too risky in my view. There is also the problem of what to do with all your Fireworks PNGs… no other software can read them

I do believe however things will work out for the better and Fireworks will continue to lighten up our screens.

I am a Creative Director who, after many years, progressed from junior designer till my current position. Since the very beginning until now, I use FW on my daily basis. I worked on very senior projects that were designed using FW, including the Xbox 360 UI, the Johnnie Walker Global Site and the Visual Concept for Xbox, Suzuki or Sony TVC. All came from concepts I draw with FW because its faster than PS, smaller file size, you can copy and paste (without any problem) objects in flash, great export options, etc.

I just worked for Saatchi & Saatchi and my team there was simply feeling stupid for not discovering FW any sooner, when they saw me doing sketches in record time. So, I want that, every time you play your Xbox 360 you realize how stupid this decision was.

And hey, all companies have the right to shoot on their feet, but whats the alternative? Any new Adobe product? When you look at Adobe site, they explain what is the use of each software and bellow FW icon you can read “Image editing for websites and apps”.

So, what is going to be the software for “Image editing for websites and apps”??? And what all the Retina Mac Books users are going to do to be able to actually use FW CS6 in the meantime??

Apple and Adobe were brands I was proud of, but lately I feel sorry for them and for all the users that are feeling, including me, so extremely disappointed by companies many of us considered good examples of innovation and brilliant ideas. Not any more.

By MS Ohio - 4:52 PM on May 7, 2013

This boils down to market share and $$$. Photoshop was the flag ship and more resources are allocated there because that’s where the money is. Throwing developers on FW which doesn’t make as much money is obviously what is happening here. However, if you don’t truly listen to your customers this will seriously hurt you in the future. If FW actually was given the resources and time it deserved i’m convinced more people would have switched. But people don’t want buggy software. I love FW so much that i’ve learned to deal with the buggy software because it’s the best tool out there for web/ui design. It’s the fastest too.

I use it on a daily basis and this really proves even more that adobe is not in touch with the hardcore web users. The open source apps out there look more and more appealing and 3-5 years adobe might have dug themselves so deep they won’t be able to get out.

Looking forward to moving to Sketch.

By SunnyP - 5:23 PM on May 7, 2013

Your Update Q&A is just throwing salt in the wound. Only your competitors are agreeing with your logic.

By Andrea - 5:23 PM on May 7, 2013

If a web/ui designer try Fireworks he can’t leave it.
Adobe was wrong not to promote it further and now abandoning it wrong.

You are killing one of the best work of Macromedia.
This decision is one of the worst decision get by Adobe.

You’re killing the best web design product out there? What are you thinking? What are we supposed to use? Ps? No way am I using that bloated, cumbersome P.O.S. for designing interfaces. Looks like it’s time to check out Sketch.

Very sad. I’ve used Fireworks for 15 years, and can design circles around photoshop and AI designers because it is so efficient in web/UI design workflows. For prototypes and UI, it’s just vastly superior to Photoshop and AI (both of which have their niche uses). Fireworks isn’t a competing tool to those, it serves a totally different group. Sad to see it go.

By John - 5:55 PM on May 7, 2013

Just took advantage of the Sketch 1/2 off promo. Going forward, I’ll be looking at phasing out Adobe products from my workflow and look for alternatives where possible.

Just had a great idea for a photoshop update. Photoshop gets a mode called ‘Fireworks Mode’ – it removes all the bloated, extraneous options not applicable for UI / Web design (95% of the application) and adds nice UI features such as a properties bar, pages etc etc.

By MS Ohio - 6:38 AM on May 8, 2013

Awesome idea!

By Cristiano - 11:45 AM on May 8, 2013

Fireworks mode right now!

By Janet Tan - 6:57 PM on May 7, 2013

Although I am a complete layman in Fireworks and other software, I am extremely disappointed to hear that Fireworks has been phased out by Adobe. Such a shame to know that a wonderful product like Fireworks will no longer be updated. I already guessed that Fireworks was from another company (Macromedia) other than Adobe, when I first heard from my daughter Melissa Tan about this devastating news. R.I.P. Fireworks, you will be greatly missed by my daughter in her heart.

By Marcos Fernandes - 7:16 PM on May 7, 2013

Adobe has never managed to upgrade Fireworks properly; they have focused in turning Photoshop into a bloated software. They missed the web evolution by far, and now they say web has changed and it’s not the same as 98 blah, blah blah. Nice news, so why couldn’t Adobe build anything better than Fireworks before discontinuing it?

I’ll be trying Sketch (before Adobe decide to buy it and spoil it too).

By Darryl - 7:19 PM on May 7, 2013

Wow – that ‘update’ really shows just how much you don’t get it … at all. I think you need to listen to the people on here and accept that the conclusions you’ve drawn about how web designers work is WRONG. Edge Suite is missing a creation tool; the focus is on implementation. Photoshop is not a creation tool for web designers. ARE YOU LISTENING? FFS.

“Adobe has embarked on creating a new collection of tools and services aimed at addressing the needs of today’s web designer – we’ve started with focusing on responsive layout, web animation and HTML, CSS and JavaScript code editing and are delivering new Edge tools to address these use cases.”

Today’s web designers are not a one-man-show that do everything themselves as it used to be 20 years ago. Today’s designers are: UX Designer, UI designer, System Visual Architect, Creative Director, etc. In majority of cases they don’t code. There are another professions for this: Front End developers, CSS/HTML5 developers, etc.

Our developers use Coda, CCEdit, BBEdi, etc and they seem to be happy enough.
Our designers use FW and Azure – both allow quickly SKETCH the concept and export a clickable prototype in some cases.

So it seems for pro use Edge falls between chairs.

“The show of support for Fireworks from the community has reaffirmed our belief that Adobe should continue to deliver dedicated tools for web designers – what follows Fireworks CS6 will be an revolutionary leap, designed from the ground up with the needs of the modern web designer front and center. To do this we need your help. We’d love to hear about how you work, what challenges you face, where you experience the most pain in your day to day design processes.”

This is just pathetic. We help you by paying for your Apps. There are countless PS to FW caparison websites. There are thousands LinkedIn UX/UI groups the endlessly discuss the very same question, which is the best app to quickly sketch a UI concept. There are boards that point out the greatest weakness of Azure – once wire frames are done one needs to move to another app and start all over again to create a skin. FW is the only app that supportes the UI workflow from the very beginning got the end.

This is what happens when financial goals overrule passion. It seems Adobe take over companies to not contribute to the design community, but to kill off competition and sit on the wealth of the monopoly achieved.

It was a sad day for the design community when Macromedia was taken over by Adobe. FireWorks has been one of the best tools for Designers for Web Development for many reasons and Photoshop comes nowhere close. FW actually got buggier and more unstable after it was taken over by Adobe.

If there is any interest of the design community at all, Adobe should released it as an open source. However following their history, I believe they would rather let it die so that they can make revenue from new products they release. For us, we will now need to start looking for alternatives and reduce our reliance on Adobe tools altogether.

Here is a song dedicated to Adobe:
‘Do you hear the people sing?
Singing a song of angry men?
It is the music of a people
Who will not be slaves again!
When the beating of your heart
Echoes the beating of the drums
There is a life about to start
When tomorrow comes!’

By guy - 2:35 AM on May 8, 2013

Good choice!

Les miserables! (of course that’s Adobe)

By hoang - 9:15 PM on May 7, 2013

PR damage control. Disingenuous at best.

While this decision isn’t surprising, considering what’s been happening with FW over the past few cycle, it’s still a pretty head scratching move. Here, in 2013, where interfaces are showing up everywhere, Adobe goes and kills the best program suited for the job.

There are about a dozen things that Fireworks clearly does better than any of the others. One of which is it’s so easy to use that I’ll send a 20 page SRC.png to my product team and they’ll add the images to their PRD’s and Wiki’s, make any minor corrections of copy or whatever and still send a PDF to our Partners. If I try sendng them a PSD . . . they would be miserable, actually they wouldn’t be able to do anthing. ohh my. Them not happy, me not happy.

Todays work.
Photoshop – touched up one image
Illustrator – didn’t fire it up
Fireworks – 10 page PDF Pitch, Fine tuned 30 page wireframe, Tailored 20 page iPhone, iPad and Mobile flows for new partner, worked on our web app, and mocked up twitter card and FB experiences for video. I can’t even imagine how long this would take in Photoshop. It makes me cringe. It shouldn’t be done in Photoshop.

I really want to talk to someone from adobe because I don’t think we are the minority. I would like to hear what their suggestion/solution is for each of these every day tasks that web folks easily solve with Fireworks. Please contact me, we are only several blocks away.

By Peter P - 10:13 PM on May 7, 2013

Does Adobe care about Fireworks customers?

Seriously guys?

I’m so mad, angry and frustrated right now. I was using fireworks from version 3, I wouldn’t be an interface designer without it. I’ve learned to live with the countless bugs, despite those it was still the best tool for interface design. I was trying to look for an alternative when at the retina upgrade announcement you didn’t include it.

With a little effort you could’ve made fw into a de facto web design tool – there is nothing in par with this on the market – you don’t even anything which could fill the gap, I don’t get this move at all.

Sketch is not enough for me – yet – but it has the potential, and now with your move you gave them space – at this moment it is the 4th top paid and grossing app in the us app store.

Hi Everyone,
I’d like to formalize the hopes for Adobe to either consider continued Fireworks development or the conversion of Fireworks into an open-source project. Please consider signing the following petition. Thanks in advance for your support!

I have to say I started out as a Macromedia Developer because of Fireworks. I really feel that Adobe in recent years has taken the “design” out of their tools and created a lot of developer tools. This is a lame decision on Adobe’s part with a toolset that is no longer quite up to par for web designers.

Adobe has a history of not understanding why Macromedia kicked it’s butt until they bought them up. I think pure design is a lost cause with Adobe or even understanding the tooling they actually sell these days..

As a long time fireworks user and an Adobe supported I’m very saddened by this news. Unfortunately with the direction adobe will be heading in the future I don’t see any way in which I can continue to support Adobe as an organisation going forward. This appears to be the end of the road.

Overlap of features, eh? You mean like the overlap between what I can do on my iPhone and my iPad? Or like the overlap between what I can do on my iPad and my laptop? Or maybe it’s similar to the overlap in functionality between my laptop and my desktop?

Sometimes tools that are similar in functionality can still have a place in the world, and Fireworks was one of those tools. I wouldn’t disagree at all that there is overlap between the some aspects of Fireworks and Photoshop/Illustrator. This decision has trivialized the unique organization and workflow of those features within FW, though. A workflow that makes FW my first choice for web prototyping, design, and exporting. That workflow is something you can’t replicate by splitting things up into two apps that have other goals in mind, even if the features are technically there.

I really see how Adobe missed the boat so badly on this one, because you have a very passionate userbase that sees it quite clearly.

When I originally heard about the discontinuation of CS I was bummed but respectful of the decision. I even convinced myself that I’d make the switch to CC soon. Then I heard about canning Fireworks and my jaw hit the floor because I don’t really know where to turn. I’ve yet to see a tool that makes image slicing, optimization and export the breeze that it is with FW.

Though I doubt this decision will have much of a long term effect on Adobe, I long for the day when they shoot themselves in the foot badly enough that they bleed out and cease to exist.

By Thierry - 2:09 AM on May 8, 2013

I do not care about 90 % of the features of Photoshop. When I launch Photoshop I lose 8go of ram. With Photoshop I need 3 clicks to change x and y positions…. Etc… The list takes 3 pages…
Adobe kills THE software for Webdesigner, so, Adobe does not love Webdesigners.
My new workflow SKETCH + PIXELMATOR, $50 for both… And my Mac breathes deeply….

By Simon T. - 2:13 AM on May 8, 2013

What a mess.
I will stop working as a webdesigner and concept developper and starting up a diner.
Photoshop is no alternative. It kills workflows and efficency. Fatal decision by Adobe.

I don’t think that anyone’s necessarily asking for new features, all we needed from FW going forward was reassurance that it would continue to respond to trends and incrementally improve the product where necessary.

One major point that you’re missing is that as it gets further behind the rest of CC, file compatibility between apps will suffer. When I get a PSD or AI from a designer I may not be able to open it and slice it with FW as I can now.

Another issue is what happens after the next-next major OS release? Webdev evolves quickly but many of us have been with FW since the early days and have a place in our workflow for it even as the landscape of development has changed. So it’s not unreasonable to think that we would still be using this tool several years down the road. Except we can’t if it isn’t supported on our OS.

Therefore we cannot simply use CS6 indefinitely even though the product is more-or-less feature complete.

Imagine for a moment that automobile production is being discontinued and while you can run the one you have into the ground you can never purchase a new one. Instead you’ll have to use a bicycle, learn to ride a motorcycle, ride the bus, walk, or use some other form of transportation that has similar “features” and can still get you from one place to another. Your immediate reaction would be one of panic and disorientation about how you will have to alter your daily routine to accommodate the major change in your “workflow.”

No matter what your opinion on the product, if you’re being reasonable you can easily understand the knee-jerk community reaction. Is the reaction exaggerated? Yes, to a degree. In time something else will take the place of FW, but by discontinuing development before a suitable alternative is available Adobe has induced a state of mass panic in those that depend on the tool everyday. We’ll all move on soon and eventually look back to laugh at how we used to depend on Adobe to get work done.

By Scott Carson - 4:08 AM on May 8, 2013

As the owner of a training center that teaches Fireworks, I am very unhappy with this decision. We know that Fireworks is vastly superior to any web graphics program out there. If Adobe wanted to kill it, they should have announced and made available a replacement at the same time.

We currently have classes scheduled in Fireworks, with students enrolled. People are going to cancel these classes and wonder… now what should I learn? Well Adobe, what should they learn? And what should we teach? We were fine teaching what was currently the best tool out there. You just announced that the product is dead, therefore removing any incentive to teach or learn it. But without any reasonable alternative.

This puts all of your authorized training centers and your customers in an awkward position. What should they be teaching and learning right now? We really hope you reconsider this decision.

By N. Artume - 4:11 AM on May 8, 2013

Ouch, that update just illustrates Adobe is clueless about what web designers really need. If they had taken the community seriously, they wouldn’t need to ask what people need for their design flow AFTER they killed off such a beloved product. I’m OK for Adobe to create a “revolutionary” new tool, but this will take years before it’s as good and accepted as Fireworks. They should’ve started that mission a long time ago. People will hopefully flee to great products from independent designers and get away from the tyranny of Adobe.

I never use Fireworks in my web design process and won’t miss it one bit. My developer friend though uses it all the time. Even opens my PS documents in it even though he has PS. Quite odd… but goes to show that the tools don’t limit or exclude you or anyone else from using your design.

I have downloaded the Edge Suite apps and love them. I can see how they could be the future of web design. Designing with Reflow, while hard to get going initially, produces the ideal result. An actual responsive, HTML and CSS comp that anybody can look at. If “designing in the browser” is the way we should all be heading (which is what a Google search will lead you to believe) then the Edge Suite services (like Reflow) are the perfect tool.

A very satisfied Adobe customer here.

By dooofus - 9:23 AM on May 8, 2013

What do you use to design web ads and graphics then? If it’s Photoshop then it’s just more labor than needed. I’m not quite sure why you are so happy with Adobe right now. Perhaps you also like having to make monthly payments or else not be able to use the software (no matter if you’ve already spent thousands).

The truth is that this company is not one to be satisfied with right now unless you like dealing with stress.

Also the excuse that the CC enables more updates is ridiculous as there is nothing preventing them from releasing updates in the traditional way.

Adobe just got too used to not having any competition and have become more self-serving.

Dropping Fireworks without any alternative and forcing monthly payments or else has nothing to do with serving the customer.

Honestly, do you think any business is “happy” about these recent announcements? Being forced perpetual upgrades even though the version they have works fine. Having a product killed that they use?

How about the person who does freelance work who now has to make payments every month just to keep a program running that they may use infrequently?

Honestly, it’s crap like this that makes me consider dropping graphic design altogether as I don’t like the idea that my main tools are “rental only” now and that good tools like Fireworks can just be killed, not for my sake, but for Adobe’s. Just imagine a mechanic or chef having to rent their knives and wrenches and fear being able to make payments or loose them although they have already paid for the value of said tools in full.

Very sad news. The problem is that a lot of Fireworks users don’t care about the css and javascript coding features of the program, we are using it because it is simple, quick and effective at creating website mockups that are easy to update.

I’m not interested in a new program that moves more in the direction of integrating my design with my coding workflow, as those are separate for a reason.

Whoever is making these decisions in upper management clearly has never tried to use Photoshop to design/export a website before.

Fireworks will always be superior to me because its the right tool for the job.

Very disappointed Adobe… although I’m not surprised. Adobe has pretty much snuffed out any competing products and has 95% marketshare… they can pretty much do what they like until enough customers support other software developers.

Oh man!
What a mistake. I can see I’m not the only one who admires FW for it’s simplicity and consolidated tool set that’s just right for everything comping that I do for web.
Adobe, you’re really opening the door here to your competitors. The community that uses FW is certainly one community you don’t want to upset, as I’m sure you’ve realized from the comments on this page. We are the engine that keeps the web moving forward. If anyone can mount a viral challenge to your decision to ax FW, it’s us!
ADOBE, YOU’RE PLAYING WITH FIRE!
Until the day that a program is made that can do everything FW does in the browser, and spits out clean, semantic code—not Adobe’s Franken-code that’s become the norm—then FW is our best option, and it’s so close to being that tool!
As I’ve strived to move my web design workflow more into developing in the browser—thanks Andy Clark for the inspiration on that—I’ve found you still cannot completely remove a graphics program from the equation…yet. I gotta have something to output my images and layout/css images, still can’t get that task done in the browser. FW made this process so much faster and pleasurable than PS. I just had to do minimal mockups of pages, slice out my presentation images and content images I’d need, and I’m in the browser. Dead simple and kept me from producing endless mockups before even getting to the browser.
There are some CMS solutions on the horizon that have the potential to fill the FW gap, or a great deal of it anyway.
Check out Concrete5. As soon as I get my basic image elements done up in FW, I port it all to a c5 theme and and totally designing in the browser from that point forward.http://www.concrete5.org/r/-/25595
It’s been a fun ride FW—I hope we’ll both live again.

By Leah - 7:06 AM on May 8, 2013

+1 for FW
+2 for c5!

By henri - 6:21 AM on May 8, 2013

Oh, come on. you are kidding us.

Fireworks is the one central Tool for web-design, app-design and prototyping…

I am so sad!

By FWer - 6:34 AM on May 8, 2013

We need the really web design tool!!!PS going dead!

By Oscar - 6:36 AM on May 8, 2013

To focus on one response from Adobe:
———-
“What new tools is Adobe proposing to create for web design?

Adobe has embarked on creating a new collection of tools and services aimed at addressing the needs of today’s web designer – we’ve started with focusing on responsive layout, web animation and HTML, CSS and JavaScript code editing and are delivering new Edge tools to address these use cases.”
———-

I think this encapsulates the possible misunderstanding of the creative process. Or simply a biased view to how people work.

Being able to very quickly iterate ideas is a key part of the process – without constraints.

There are good reasons why many of the best designers start by sketching with a pencil on paper.

I don’t think anyone is suggesting that pen and paper is not a great way to get ideas down.

**The point many designers in this comment thread are making is that Fireworks is the equivalent on the computer (in addition to it’s many other strengths)**

Another analogy:
Many use Fireworks instead of Photoshop, Illustrator or Indesign when doing very quick mockups for print work. Why? It is quick, low res (so clients understand they are roughs), easy to drop assets into and efficient to iterate.

If idea has legs, designers will then create correctly in the right package (likely using Indesign with assets made in PS and Ai).

Transfer this process to webdesign as follows: designer/UX person creates mockups and visualised ideas. If the idea has legs, they will work with the relevant packages (ie the NEW tools Adobe are developing) to bring to life. Of course many argue, FW is so much more.

However in my company, rather than using another software package, we work directly with talented developers to realise the designs and develop/iterate them as interactive interfaces. And from my experience, they love text editors and curse Dreamweaver!

By Juergen Kiefner - 6:47 AM on May 8, 2013

I don`t want to fuzz around with an overmighty company like iGodDobe. Even if we in our litlle enterprise would have to change from Mac to PC – we`ll never use CC. On the PC side there is a lot of software that is equal to Adobe – if not better.

One more way that Adobe has disappointed me. I will be abandoning this software suite for something else. RIP Fireworks. RIP owning your own copy of the software you use everyday to do your job. Can’t wait to see what happens on the first day of the “Cloud Suite” launch and the whole thing comes to a crashing halt. Adobe what are you thinking? Obviously not about your customers – clients. So sad to thing that money is the bottom line.

How we should create animated gif’s in another program, where we can choosing exactly 16 colours for best performances. How should we create small pixel icons, interfaces for applications and websites? I dont need 1.000 photo filters in my daily workflow. -.-

By Stefan - 8:15 AM on May 8, 2013

Please think twice Adobe. FW is “still” very very useful for webdesign.

By Jules - 8:30 AM on May 8, 2013

I recently was job hunting for UI design positions. I can’t tell you how many companies I interviewed with required the knowledge of Fireworks. To make myself more marketable, I started using it. I can’t believe I waited so long. I LOVE it. It makes my workflow so much easier.

The use of pages, cuts down on the amount of files I have to keep track of. The share layer to pages, helps make frequent changes simple. Those are just 2 of the reasons it’s so great. I haven’t even mentioned the file size and the ease of exporting graphics.

Since I’ve started using Fireworks, I hardly open Photoshop or Illustrator. There is no need. It’s funny that a program that hasn’t had development advancements can be so much better than the programs Adobe chooses to invest.

Adobe, once again I’m disappointed by the business decisions you make.

By Mark in SF - 8:40 AM on May 8, 2013

Very, very disappointing. None of those other apps mentioned is an adequate substitute nor did this description above give me confidence that Adobe truly understands the many ways and what we need/love about this app — not just layers and pages, but also the way that objects are selected. — not just web design but interface design, including mobile.

I’ve been a heavy Macromedia and Adobe application user since Macromedia was called MacroMind so I’ll think about it before I abandon the suite, but it was Fireworks, not Photoshop, that kept me upgrading. Photoshop was one of the most impressive apps of early desktop computing but is now far and beyond more sophisticated (complicated/difficult-to-use) than is needed for interface design. I’m a big fan of Adobe but other than the creation of Fireworks and InDesign, it’s been awhile since I’ve appreciated the product moves the company has made.

Going away are heavy-lifting tools for masters of media creation and coming in are task-based iconified mini-wizards overly designed for newbies. Boo.

Like a team that made it to the playoffs but lost in the second round, I guess I’ll say thanks for the memories Fireworks. I started in this industry in 1979 and you had become my #1 go-to app. You will be missed.

By Dave - 8:42 AM on May 8, 2013

I feel like Dad just told me to stay inside while he goes out back to shoot the family dog because it’s a mixed breed and crashes too frequently while trying to save.

Adobe, if you really “care” about your customers then release it open-source, in any case, you haven’t changed it much since you bought it from Macromedia…

I won’t use Photoshop for pixel design, it just doesn’t make sense in many ways. You just keep overbloating it with more features I don’t even use 10% of them and keeping it as one of the most expensive softwares out there.

By Diego - 9:26 AM on May 8, 2013

This is truly dismaying. I have been a fireworks user for 6 years now and have come to respect the tool as a powerful bridge between two other tools, Illustrator and Photoshop, that don’t quite cover the same ground. Firework’s gradient controls, specifically it’s talent for elliptical gradients (fireworks IS STILL superior in it’s gradient tool) make is uniquely valuable to my design process. Additionally, it’s exporting tools for optimizing sliced graphics for web and app development are second to none. And yet, Adobe can’t see it’s way clear to support this app but can continue to roll out limited web development tools like Edge. Fireworks is robust and powerful, it seems so short sighted and neglectful of a very active user base to throw it on the trash heap. I hope that a tidal way of resentful emails and comments will reverse this misguided decision.

By Isabel - 12:32 PM on May 8, 2013

Fireworks delivers superior vector works than any other tool. Fastest and easier.

As you said the gradient is amazing, not only in results but in use. Why the hell the rest of the programs have to have those weird inefficient clumsy approaches?

Why cant they just work as FW and deliver that astounding quality?

The feather tool would be another example. I would put up with the awful usability in Illustrator with all those pop ups, check for previews and sort of stuff if at least it would deliver better results.

No wonder why almost nobody designs icons and really good illustration stuff in Illustrator, but most of the best artists go and do some rasterized artwork in Photoshop (or vectorial Fireworks if you don’t fear changes for the better)

It is even shame to write the QA. Obviously Adobe has reason to deal with individual designers. Keep your enterprise customers Adobe. Hopefully you will find creativity in that part of the eco-system. Once you find out, creative artist moving away from your platform, you will regret the decision.

By Berners-Lee - 11:09 AM on May 8, 2013

I think this semantic html markup sums up our feelings. Just add in the greater than/less than symbols that the comments won’t let me do, and you’ll get it:
</adobe>

I’ve been using Fireworks since the initial beta of 1.0, and nothing else in the Adobe arsenal can touch it in terms of web workflow. Yes, Illustrator does vector and Photoshop does bitmap and you can embed Illustrator art in Photoshop, and there’s some sort of slicing functionality, etc… but it’s far less efficient and streamlined process. I suspect that Sketch and Coda are in my future more than Adobe’s proposed solution for web design.

By Marcos Fernandes - 6:20 PM on May 8, 2013

I agree. Also, for most tasks I’ve been using cleaner and cheaper software.
Adobe has good tools, but they’re also too bloated and expensive. The workflow suggested on their tutorials, shows how Adobe has been missing web design, maybe since 98.

I’ve been using Fireworks since -God rests it in peace- Macromedia. Fireworks is just much more superior when it comes to web designing, workflow and speed.

I know this might sound silly, but the movement between tools, canvas control (for example, I LOVE CTRL+ALT+F), even something as simple as undoing and redoing stuff is much more smoother and makes more sense in FW.

For someone with basic computers background, somebody starting web designing, FW just makes more sense. I believe PS and AI just fail to provide the level of smoothness in workflow that FW does.

I guess I have to wait and see what Adobe has to offer in return.

By Mark - 12:54 PM on May 8, 2013

I’ve spent years converting people to FW and never once have I heard anyone regret it… now I suppose I’ll turn my efforts into finding an alternative to Adobe and converting people to that.

By John - 1:06 PM on May 8, 2013

“Designing for the screen in 2013 is incredibly different to designing for the screen in 1998. As we considered adding new capabilities to Fireworks, we came to the conclusion that creating new, task-focused tools would better enable us to meet the future needs of web designers and developers”

How about you let us tell you what tools we need for the modern web instead of dictating what we should use! Instead of using Fireworks you now want us to use several bulky programs instead of one (Fireworks)? Combined they don’t even compare to the workflow that Fireworks offers. Photoshop is not nor will it ever be a web designing tool. You have now killed the best tool at our disposal. I am beyond frustrated and disappointed. Adobe you really failed to see the value in Fireworks and really let us down.

By Stuart Bainbridge - 1:31 PM on May 8, 2013

I wouldn’t mind but in PS I can’t even type in the size of vector shapes, it’s so difficult to get layouts right. This is my biggest fight at work re-doing other past PS designers work as the developers complain about misaligned, odd sized boxes. I knew Adobe would chuck over Macromedia’s work, it was a very, very sad day when Macromedia went. Never mind the new Edge software when are you going to make PS any good for web design, PS is an image touch up tool for photographers, it’s not designed for designers.

As a UI/UX designer in a company producing web and mobile applications it is the only graphics software we use. For initial designs, prototypes to optimized asset output, it does it all. On top of that I can open illustrator and Photoshop files supplied by 3rd parties. So now I need to use a collection of different tools to do what I can with just fireworks. Seems like a backwards step. Fireworks always had its bugs but it it did 99% of what I do on a daily basis.

I would like Adobe to think about Photoshop having a “Fireworks mode”. A mode suited to screen designers. The beauty of fireworks was the tools you used all the time were very simple to use… gradient fills, rounded corners, symbols, slices, optimisation, pages… etc. I suppose I will stick with Fireworks until it is no longer supported or something better comes along.. damn

By Joe Baldwin - 3:32 PM on May 8, 2013

Bad decision Adobe. WHY???
I use Illustrator and Photoshop when required but neither can replace Fireworks.
The suits at Adobe obviously have no idea who uses their products or how. Somebody please usurp these cretins!

Fireworks is not just used in the web design world only. In the eLearning community, many designers are using FW for projects that deploy to the LMS or private network. I also work with illustrators that prefer FW over AI for vector drawing illustrations.

This is news is very unfortunate.

By Paul - 12:41 AM on May 9, 2013

Funny really. It would appear is was *only* because of the outcry they said they would at last release a bug fix to solve the “Could not save file” problem that is now 10 months old (see http://forums.adobe.com/thread/1041918). For all the promises of “pay for Creative Cloud and get fast fixes” that is way to go Adobe. Slow clap.

Now time to fess up: I think we should be told who it was that ultimately took the decision to kill Fireworks. And, they should clearly communicate what it is they have planned to replace it (assuming they even want to keep our custom), or maybe they just want to see all us Adobe FW customers now drift away.

By Sebastian Bayona - 1:28 AM on May 9, 2013

I’m not agree with the new Adobe politics, Photoshop and Illustrators are strong programmes but they cant replace Fireworks, I’m totally disappointed

I have always told my design students that if they kill Fireworks, I will probably quit design and focus on writing. I have seen Flash (and years of actionscript study) slip away. If I have to move graphics back and forth between PSD and AI to accomplish my aesthetic goals, I will hate my workflow and produce uninspired work. Time to pack. A few big companies are telling designers how to work instead of listening to how they WANT to work. I hope some innovative software startup will see the opportunity here. If not, it’s time to pack. Too bad.

Yes.. that about “I tell you how you should do it” is one of the most annoying things about Adobe.

I have been trying Sketch for like 3 months now, a few times.. not really very hard.

Today I started more seriously, and I can tell you, I am an illustrator and UI designer and so far, I am happy happy happy.

Check my gallery to understand the level I expect in terms of vectors and the ease of use I expect from a program should be something like FW first time I tried it.

Few hours trying and the Sketch is working as I spect. That is a product. Usable, friendly and capable.

It can only get better!! 😀

By Devie Kleisterlee - 2:27 AM on May 9, 2013

I am sad and upset. Adobe kills Fireworks but has no good alternative at all. This is crazy. I proabably switch to Sketch and Pixelmator, if there won’t be any news from Adobe soon. Even Dreamweaver and Edge seem more aimed at hobbyists rather than professionals nowadays.

Fireworks was one of the jewels in the Adobe CS family, why are you EOLing it!!??

By algro - 4:10 AM on May 9, 2013

Claims:

1. since the exodus of macromedia employes, adobe put no proper team on to fw.

2. adobe uses very outdated technology, eg. if you create an extension for AI CS6, you need to downgrade your Xcode to a 4year old version.

3. they didnt just kill fw because of selling-numbers. fw application code must be that messy, their developers unable to clean up, and no budget was given to rewrite it.

4. With the distribution of CS, adobe never really was able to keep track of which tool has a growing market, eg fireworks.

5. You can make more shiny presentation by bringing new, small products on the market. the shareholders love those presentations. but they affect non-professionals only and adobe proved in the near past, that they are not able to put enough effort into it to to make them professional.

6. incorporating feature requests and improving usability seems to be a low priority at adobe.

By James - 5:39 AM on May 9, 2013

Easily the worst decision in Adobe history. I’m assuming Adobe will creating a ‘Fireworks View’ or similar in Photoshop that will handle the incredible features that FW offered (Gradients, rounded corners, etc. etc. etc.)????

Come on Adobe, you are alienating the digital community by solely providing a graphics product (PS) which is not suitable for web design. Alternatively we skip the design process altogether and use your new edge tools to start coding straight away! By doing this you’ll be responsible for creating a very very unpretty digital landscape, one which be flooded with templates and a severe lack or creativity.

I urge you to re-think or provide the same FW toolset bundled into Photoshop. Answers please, your customers deserve as much.

By Stymie - 6:47 AM on May 9, 2013

Bad move.
What other software can you name debuted in 1998, has received very little love or updates from it’s owners, yet 15 years later is capable of sparking this kind of backlash. That should tell you all you need to know about your decision making here. Pretty faulty.
Before you go making 5 new programs and telling us how to do our jobs, why don’t you just give a good update to the program we already do those 5 jobs with. And hire someone who knows what semantic html is. Adobe Muse is going to cause such a backlash amongst professional designers b/c we’re going to have to start working with websites that some designer wanna-be made with Muse and thinks is great, but when we look under the hood is just a hot mess of franken-code. At which point we’ll inform the poor souls how crappy Muse is and that their website will need a complete overhaul. Enjoy the ride down the road that Quark took. Just don’t forget it leads you off a cliff.

By Victor - 6:51 AM on May 9, 2013

Bad bad bad decision, I don’ t want photoshop for UI and Web Design, we will find alternatives like Sketch

Well its a great Gap to be filled by some another company. I wish that ex macromedia employees could open their own company. To be honest iv been expecting this back then when Adobe acquired macromedia. And still in doubt where the hell that great team of genius experts gone.
Hey Dude, responsible for Freehand, flash, Fireworks software interface and Logics!
WE NEED YOU BACK!!! Please open another company, make few good tools like in old good times. And i promise i will go for it no matter how much you’ll ask in the begging!

ME: I will not stop using Fireworks, until there is no better alternative to create layouts for screendesign (UI Web, App, …) !
I think Photoshop or Illustrator will never compete with Fireworks because the tools have to change there whole concept for this, which is not possible.

Since Adobe got Fireworks from Macromedia only 2 real new features made it in there. So Adobe killed Fireworks from the beginning many years ago in 2007. Anyway after PS and AI steal some features from FW, Fireworks kept the better tool.

The real power of Fireworks are the extension developers. Those guys develop awesome extensions which added the features Adobe doesn’t.

As long as the developers create awesome extensions, Fireworks is still alive!
The community is also very big. So don’t give up, keep Fireworks alive by creating more and more extensions!!!

This makes my heart heavy; why, Adobe? Is it always about the money? You don’t have another tool comparable to Fireworks, you just don’t. Photoshop lacks the object and vector tools, Illustrator lacks the bitmap tools, both are clunky and slow and sorely lacking for development-time workflows.

If you can’t maintain Fireworks, can you please try making a real web design tool and stop trying to make Photoshop do everything? You make all these new tools (Edge, etc) can’t you just make a proper web design tool if you don’t want to keep the one you’ve got? If someone at Adobe is listening, don’t by shy to contact me directly; I’ve invested a lot for you guys, developed parts of Fireworks, fixed bugs for you, tested endless hours for you, and while I can’t say I’m not upset I would still be happy to help you make a web design tool. Photoshop is not it.

I have to say that I’ve never used Fireworks, and most of my web prototypes have been done using Photoshop(I like PS); but seeing all this “Angry Birds-style” attack on Adobe for deciding not to continue with Fw, made me wonder what did I miss? I think I’ll catch up with it, or just jump straight to Sketch to understand what was/is so good about Fw-esque tools.

I just opened FW and it was so light, that dazzled me. MaybeI’m understanding NOW…

By Dan - 12:07 PM on May 9, 2013

It’s called specialised tool. But that it’s just a small part of it all.

I used Fireworks when I first started in web design 10 years ago… but I haven’t opened it in the past 5 years. There is a lot of overlap between the various products, and there is (was?) a huge amount between Fw and Ps. If Adobe can simplify and improve their toolset, I’m all for it! That’s progress.

By Webmunki - 9:27 AM on May 9, 2013

Don’t forget the (literally) thousands of templates out there that have been created for use within the CMS ecosphere.

Hugely disappointed in both the demise of Fireworks and the way you have handled it.

Fireworks is a critical tool for interface design and layouts, bringing vector based graphics (logos, icons etc) together with composited photos (promos, graphics). There maybe an overlap with various apps, but the Creative Suite was about the right tools for the right jobs. I would never go to Fireworks for logo design, or photographic work, but equally would never go to Illustrator or Photoshop for digital layout work. Watching a skilled Photoshop user create web layouts for clients in Photoshop is painful and slow and terrible to make changes on compared to Fireworks.

Secondly, the handling of this is terrible. The statements above are patronising marketing speak, from a company that operates like it’s too big to fail. Why not be honest and open, Fireworks costs X to develop and returns Y in sales and is therefore not viable.

Or if you think you have something better to offer, wait until it is ready for show and tell before telling people you’re killing a much loved product.

I know that there was overlap between Photoshop, Illustrator, and Edge. That’s WHY I loved Fireworks. I’m not a “photo designer”, and I’m not a graphic designer. I’m a web designer.

The web is not the same as photographs and graphics. The web is a blend of vectors and bitmaps, with code, pages, hover states, and the like.

Is adobe going to ‘modularize’ the design process for photographers? Will Photographers need five different tools for editing photos now? Are graphic designers going to need three tools for making icons?

No. They aren’t.

The fact that Adobe is turning off the single best tool for web design tells me that Adobe doesn’t think that web design is a legitimate profession.

With all the work Adobe is doing in the W3C to push the web forward, you’re pulling us backward by asking us to use the wrong tools for the job.

By John - 11:36 AM on May 9, 2013

The decision by Adobe to discontinue Fireworks is almost Microsoft-esque in its level of fail.

By Nelson Therrien - 11:54 AM on May 9, 2013

Adobe has always been a designer’s company… Macromedia was a Web company (Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Flash…).

Adobe acquired Macromedia to merge the two together, but has some said, they know nothing about the web (look at their competition: ImageReady for Fireworks (only the last CS2 version had some potential), LiveMotion for Flash (made two versions and it never was a menace for Flash ’cause it was too bad), GoLive for Dreamweaver (some cool features, but not at all comparable to Dreamweaver))…

So, they weren’t able to make it work the right way and they’re slowly killing Flash, and now Fireworks… And they may even try to kill Dreamweaver with Muse and Edge Code…

The merge has brought some good things, but when I see that, I remember the fear I had when I heard about the merge and realize I was right: they’re slowly killing all Macromedia products (do they try to improve ColdFusion, Flash (or Flex) Builder or Director? No, they killed it all (ok, they are still there, but there’re getting more and more behind, instead of ahead like their other products: Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign…)

By Nelson Therrien - 11:55 AM on May 9, 2013

P.S. IF they do work on a better product, why don’t they leave Fireworks at least until the other is ready?

Listen, @adobe. You can put fireworks back in top priority or I will ditch the whole adobe family. Every company i am going to work in the future, every designer i know. I will convince them to ditch you. Why? You don’t care about your users. Why should we care if your products are going to hell? or you lose your job?

I will do all i can to support other company to fight you.

By Joanna - 1:15 PM on May 9, 2013

Adobe, it would take a novel to express my sadness at the way you handle product acquisitions, customer research, and PR.

I’ve used Fireworks (and Dreamweaver) since the UltraDev days. As a former technical illustrator for print, I tried Illustrator, Photoshop, CorelDraw (don’t knock it! It was great by comparison).

Then I found Fireworks. Oh my god, it was the best thing that ever happened to me as a designer. Fireworks helped me move from print 10+ years ago into web-based software product design, and I have never encountered a better visual design tool since. I’ve watched former PS fans convert after only a brief use of FW. Even new users can complete arduous PS tasks in 1/5 the time using FW. Whether or not *you* sell it, the tool sells itself – why turn your back on profit?

PS originated as a Print tool, and it remains that to this day. Print designers move a LOT more slowly than web folks do (when it comes to design process), and have entirely different needs. One design tool does not suit every industry.

Being a UX designer isn’t about spending hours upon hours in PS exploring layers and filters, it’s about the end result and how much thought you can put into it. FW buys us time to design and build better products, because it is so easy to use.

Lastly, Fireworks is the only reason I continue to convince every company I work for to buy the ENTIRE creative suite for my teams. There is always a hope that other Adobe products will attempt to measure up to Fireworks. I haven’t seen it happen yet though, and now you simply wish to take away the yardstick. Dirty pool, Adobe.

We implore you, please reconsider.

By Chris Brown - 1:20 PM on May 9, 2013

I have been a long-time Fireworks user since Macromedia Fireworks 2. I was very skeptical of Adobe when it acquired Macromedia but was very appreciative and pleased when Fireworks continued to be developed under Adobe.

I use Creative Suite because I’m a developer and use Dreamweaver and Fireworks daily. Although, I’m well trained in Photoshop, I HATE using the application. Its bloated and a resource hog and 90% of the application contains things that I rarely, if ever, need. If I was a photographer, maybe that would be a different story, but I’m a developer. I’m working with tight deadlines, radical changes in workflows and user interfaces. I need an application that can provide me with robust wire-framing and prototyping. Not to mention, that if I need to make a quick graphic, I can do so quickly within ONE application — Fireworks. Fireworks is great for its support of both vector and raster graphics. And its toolset is usable whereas Photoshop buries everything deeper and deeper in menus and panels making it less efficient and usable. Its beginning to look like Maya.

So yeah…totally pissed about this announcement. I will likely not be attending another Adobe MAX Conference and not upgrading to the next Adobe CS because I can just use Sublime instead of Dreamweaver and continue to use my current version of Fireworks until I find an alternative. I guess that I’ll no longer have a use for Adobe products exact Adobe Acrobat (which is minimal now as most of my clients want to avoid printable materials). Well done. No wonder Kevin Lynch left. Way to f*ck things up.

By Chris Brown - 1:23 PM on May 9, 2013

Oh, and I used to be a huge ColdFusion developer. But my company has weened us off ColdFusion for Ruby on Rails due to the licensing costs. Same goes for my other clients…they’d prefer that I use PHP or Ruby for their sites.

Adobe meet the web.

By Nelson Therrien - 1:46 PM on May 9, 2013

“We understand that Fireworks has one of the most passionate communities on the web”…
“Absolutely – we understand that web designers love Fireworks for it’s unique approach to page-based, stateful interaction design and rapid prototyping, and that it is an essential part of the web design process.”
“The show of support for Fireworks from the community has reaffirmed our belief that Adobe should continue to deliver dedicated tools for web designers”
“we know that Fireworks offers something unique that has made it an essential part of the web designer’s toolkit”

Yeah, “we know all of that, but guess what?: we don’t care!

And then, we’ll try to convince you that we listen to you and that we want to provide tools for you to help you”

Yeah, right… Just like you said you would keep boxed products, or that the Toolkit for create JS was separated to upgrade it every 3-4 months (and never did so in a year), or that Flash was playing well with HTML5 and that you would continue to develop it (and then announced that you would no longer support mobile devices, slowly killing it)…

Yeah Adobe, you care about your customers… as long as they use design products…

By Nelson Therrien - 1:51 PM on May 9, 2013

“Another good tool for prototyping is Adobe Proto for the iPad… It’s a great product that allows you to… Oh, sorry, I forgot we dropped it as well…”

By Damion - 1:56 PM on May 9, 2013

Adobe says this from the link above….

“We are actively working on next-generation solutions for screen design and prototyping. If you’d like to join us in the process of creating these new tools then please complete the form below:”

So I assume this means they are working on something to replace fireworks????

Thing is there was no need to replace it. All fireworks needs is a little love. Re-write for 64bit, Interface/UI refresh like PS and AI, and maybe even having a edge reflow “mode” merged with it so designers can see how their design will work as a responsive layout.

Nah using 3, 4 or 5 different app’s makes more sense..lol

By Dee - 2:21 PM on May 9, 2013

I have been through so many EOL products it is silly. I’ve spoken on so many at conferences and done video tutorials etc., that while I feel like I’ve been one of Fireworks biggest supporters since 2001, I know many of you have seen this coming since Adobe acquired the product.

We all produce things. The tool doesn’t and shouldn’t dictate what we create, but make us more efficient, productive and shave off minutes of our day so we can go out and enjoy it. As much as I have loved Fireworks, I get the decision. Some of the financial folks and upper management didn’t see what many of us see, and it has been a huge undertaking for years to get them to understand by a large inner Adobe community and us the outside Adobe community.

If you had never used an Aaron Beall, John Dunning, Orange Command, Matt Stow etc., extension you can’t say you were a Fireworks user. They are what made the product something more then ok, and more on the amazing side. They have been the real heroes of Fireworks. They are the ones who made the application relevant to the modern world.

If they want to create something for the future, I can assure you it will be amazing. For Fireworks, I bid that workflow a fond farewell. Unless some miracle lets it become open source, of course.

I encourage all to take a deep breath and think about your workflow and what tools make the most sense. Applications either change or our workflow does. Time for a new look and stop blaming Adobe for something they clearly have already made a decision about. We tried. We fought a good fight. We influenced designers to use vectors instead of pixels to design with, and they understood how much faster and better that was. As we move forward, I don’t see that part changing. Vectors are better. Photoshop isn’t the answer and I always wondered why anyone would ever compare those products to begin with. What we can do, is take this as an opportunity to see what new workflows will enable our creative process. Breathe fellow FW lovers, breathe and create. Don’t waste time waxing nostalgic.

By Mike - 2:47 PM on May 9, 2013

Imagine 1 year passed and you have implemented all FW features into PS (impossible), Won’t that application be a super complicated software that does everything in one!

Firework pathway has been completely different to ps, Ai and edge…”Overlapping”?? Didn’t you have any better Reason?

Revise this decision before it gets too late, No wonder there will be new players filling this huge gap very soon…The gap which is not overlapping anything!

“Adobe has embarked on creating a new collection of tools and services aimed at addressing the needs of today’s web designer”

“Adobe should continue to deliver dedicated tools for web designers”

I predominately design apps, not websites.

“Yes, Adobe is already planning to release an update for Fireworks CS6 in the coming weeks that addresses over 25 reported issues, including the “File not found” issue on Mac OS 10.8 often experienced when exporting from the Image Preview dialog.”

“File not found” – is the least of it’s problems. This dose not effect my workflow at all. How about working on the massive stability issues.

“Photoshop is a major part of the design process”

Photoshop is not even a small part of my design process.

By Will Rogers - 5:01 PM on May 9, 2013

I have used Adobe products for 20 years, and I moved to Fireworks about a year and a half ago. Like many folks, I hate the bugs, I hate the crashes (the 0k Recovered saves) I hate its font handling, its Macromedia bezier tool nonsense, I hate its quirkiness — but despite all this it is the ONLY Adobe product that is equipped to design and prototype large multi-page sites in a jiffy, and because of that I have grown to LOVE this ugly misfit of an application.

Photoshop flatters me into believing I am an artist, Illustrator frees me to ideate and sketch at speed, but Fireworks is the UX designers trusty workhorse. My days are spent predominately laying out designs in this quirky, orphan child, layer-png misfit. For me it is the InDesign of visual web design. Your decision to discontinue it is the equivalent of asking me to design and output a magazine just using Photoshop and Illustrator. Hmmmm — no thanks.

Adobe if Fireworks to hand over the mantel to a young 64bit UX-prototyping-multi-page child then I’m all in, if however you have made a business strategy to go after non-pros, then I guess like the many folks above I will have to question my allegiance to Adobe and venture into new applications (maybe Sketch?).

That said I do believe that my Adobe CC membership should provide tools for the UX/UI community— last time I looked they were a very large contingent of the contempory design community!

By Kimberley - 6:47 PM on May 9, 2013

I feel deceived by Adobe at this year’s MAX conference, from which I have just returned. Having attended the one and only (I think) Fireworks class with the marvelous Dave Hogue (that there was only 1 Fireworks class listed for the conference should have been Clue #1 to Adobe’s plans).

Really, the whole class was disappointed with Adobe’s decision (despite their prolific “FAQs” ) and told the 2 Adobe employees who were there to begin the class exactly that. So despite Adobe’s news releases and whatever interviews they may give, no one in the class was happy about this decision. Where’s the press release about that?

By Raja - 9:56 PM on May 9, 2013

I really feel sad when i come to know this news. I have been using FW since long time and i really can not digest the fact Adobe is no longer including it CC. I really beg Adobe to rethink your decision and improve and fix all the bugs and am sure this great little tool become your top products.

Is there any chance the the “file not found” bug will be fixed in Fireworks 5.5?

If not is there a way to upgrade from Creative Suite 5.5 to Fireworks CS6?

By sarhov - 3:13 AM on May 10, 2013

Adobe don’t kill Fireworks, don’t you see that how many people use it, We don’t want photoshop, we want fireworks, can’t you understand?

By disgruntled - 5:44 AM on May 10, 2013

Reading all these comments, I’m thinking of how many software companies would fall over themselves to have one of their products so loved by such a large professional userbase. And then to think Adobe are killing such a product. An ostensibly most ridiculous decision! The demand is obviously there, the product is established professionally, and your customers passionately love the product. Why oh why kill it?

By ZjQj - 9:32 AM on May 10, 2013

W@nkers.

By ZjQj - 9:36 AM on May 10, 2013

FWCS6 has just been immortalised

By Debo - 10:57 AM on May 10, 2013

Stupidity.

By Corrie - 12:22 PM on May 10, 2013

I am not sure if this strategy was thought through thoroughly (TTT), it may just be too early and too expensive for the very loyal Adobe customers of the past 20 years.

By Gerard Smit - 1:08 PM on May 10, 2013

Dear Adobe, you are really making a mistake here! We need a design app for Web and UI designers! So not Photoshop and not Illustrator. I cannot believe you are abandoning Fireworks and not have anything decent to replace it. Just give Fireworks some love and it will be perfect for the web community!

A sad sad sad customer, that might leave soon.

By June Fraser - 1:13 PM on May 10, 2013

Let me say one thing: bye bye Adobe, hello Sketch!

By Richard F - 2:48 PM on May 10, 2013

Sketch 2 is far from ready to carry Firework’s torch. It’s riddled with bugs and it lacks a lot of subtle, but oh so important features that ONLY Fireworks have.

What’s the biggest thing going right now? Oh, yes, thats right, the web and mobile apps. Sounds like a good time to kill the one program you offer that actually did that well: Fireworks. Are you insane?

Give it back to us, even if it means just fixing the bugs and making sure it works with new operating systems. I run a web design firm and we all use fireworks and nothing else.

Don’t blow it or you lose us for good.

By jloa - 12:14 AM on May 11, 2013

We are really disappointed. We design sites only in fireworks. PS is for graphic elements (photos, bg, images), the rest (the grid, icons, layouts) are made in fireworks coz its MUCH easier and faster.

By Kevin - 2:51 AM on May 11, 2013

Adobe, you are making a mistake. Despite overlap between PhotoShop and Illustrator on lots of features. I prefer Fireworks for doing web layouts and images as it has features that are not available in other packages and I find it much quicker.
I was considering joining Creative Cloud for future fireworks products but having found out there is to be no more releases there no point for me joining.
I shall continue to use Fireworks CS6 (until it becomes pointless) but I can not see myself ever buying another Adobe product again.
So long fair well.

By David B - 6:38 AM on May 11, 2013

This is ludicrous, absolutely ludicrous! How are we supposed to design for web??? Photoshop is NOT a product for web designers! Vectors which are easily scaled for multiple devices are an absolute must, as are the fantastic colour gradient fills which allow us designers to blend beautiful graphics easily and elegantly.

I will certainly be looking to pull Adobe from my teams software list unless this decision is reversed. There are good alternatives to all Adobe’s other pieces of software, but FW was in a class of it’s own, a unique product which was a joy to use.

Digital agencies across the globe are hanging their heads in disappointment. Bad move Adobe.

The unique blend of vector functionality, image manipulation and web specific features isn’t available anywhere in such a compact and effective form. Buying Photoshop and Illustrator to get 50% of the functionality? I don’t think so.

Adobe, listen to your community. Fireworks is a very good tool, easy to use and great to carry simple to complex works, not so much like Photoshop or other tools you have. I teach this to 3rd grade students and they are able to start using it immediately and create great things for their projects (not possible with Photoshop, Illustrator or your other platforms)

By John Rabid - 10:22 AM on May 11, 2013

Due to this announcement I have been spending the past few days trying to force myself to use Photoshop for web design and graphic editing of user interfaces. Talk about flashing back to 1998.

The amount of time Photoshop takes to do what Adobe Fireworks will do, will cost my design firm time, money and infinite headaches in our established workflow. While I know we can continue to use Fireworks for the time being, we can no longer trust Adobe to be a company that we invest our time and money in for a web design based business.

Our clients depend on us for meeting deadlines and we have depended on Fireworks to be able to do our work and meet goals. I hope Adobe can find a way to save fireworks, and show that you value our business and the investment in time money and training we have invested in your company.

By Ethan Anderson - 6:26 PM on May 13, 2013

I feel your pain. I’ve spent the past 2 days trying to design an ios gui using Illustrator. I was about ready to put a gun in my mouth.

Like many in this discussion I’ve been using Fireworks from the beginning. As a full time web designer since 1995 Fireworks is by far the best tool out (and I’ve tried a lot). I wanted to join in and voice my opinion. While it might not be much please keep it alive. You will keep many customers if you do.

By samson - 12:11 AM on May 12, 2013

Am really impressed to see the overwhelming responses i think rational thinking must prevail on part of Adobe people and make this little wonderful tool more popular by including it in cc and develop it improve it much better.Otherwise you loose lots of customers.

Right now, when everythings gets a display who needs an interface – the market is exploding right now.
And you think the best decision is: kill the best tool for developing these interfaces
Really?

By Adam - 9:01 AM on May 12, 2013

Adobe, you have no other product that will do for me the things that Fireworks did. I was sad when you bought Macromedia because I feared you would get rid of Fireworks and incorrectly see it as a redundancy, and was relieved (though suspicious) when you kept it alive.

Killing it now is a giant mistake.

Illustrator and Photoshop do not do what Fireworks does, nor do they have the rapid workflow that it does.

Fireworks was the best of both worlds and you should have made it stronger instead of killing it.

Now I’m going to be forced to use 3rd party alternatives that don’t come anywhere near what Fireworks was, or pay through the nose to do the same things in Illustrator and Photoshop while taking 8 times as much time to complete simple tasks without all of the functionality.

Designing for the screen in 2013 is incredibly different to designing for the screen in 1998. As we considered adding new capabilities to Fireworks, we came to the conclusion that creating new, task-focused tools would better enable us to meet the future needs of web designers and developers.”

I would love to see Adobe produce an end to end video demonstrating the workflow “we should be using instead of Fireworks” to design a website or web app…

it would be nice seeing an video, designers getting the same tasks for a web/mobile project, half of them using fw, the other half ps, from wireframing till end-comps. but wait, we know the answer: PS fails, Fw rocks!

A freelance FW-designer I met recently once did a contest against an equally skilled designer using PS. The idea was to create the same design within one day. The designer using Fireworks was 25% faster. And that was even without testing both programs in a real life multi-screen-design-project, which is where Fireworks real strength lies. I’m guessing that at that point the productivity within FW would have proven to easily be double that of PS.

Thy could fusion or mix mode or merge photoshop + fireworks in working modes but i think its too huge for adobe because thy give up fireworks, bad decision in my opinion, fireworks its great and amazing and simple to work and getting same target as photoshop

Adobe is getting crazy!!
first, “photoshop cc” and the new forced cloud system, now this…
and then?

By TC - 1:23 PM on May 13, 2013

This is outrageous.

I will now refuse to buy any adobe product again. Even if it means using inferior alternatives to ps and ai.

By swasidasi - 2:44 PM on May 13, 2013

This is a very short termed move. I used photoshop a lot, still do, but certainly not for mobile and web. Adobe, tell us that you keep fireworks, you can also give it another name and a new start image. you can rebuild it, 64bit, snappier, less bugs and some shiny icons. You seriously don’t have to reinvent the wheel. How about you invite some small design companies to work on it, talking what our needs are, and how you could improve your tools. No fancy stuff, only workflow, usability and design improvements.

By Alex Boorman - 2:56 PM on May 13, 2013

Well this officially means Adobe will never earn another dollar from me, Fireworks was the only web tool left worth purchasing. Photoshop for web designers? What a joke, we don’t need more bloatware imaging editing software to prototype UI. Hopefully this leads to some smaller more motivated company actually releasing a focused tool for this, Adobe hasn’t made anything worth it’s price tag in many years anyways.

By Henning - 3:03 PM on May 13, 2013

Adobe, you’ve blown it. As a web developer who has been using Fireworks since the Macromedia days I hate to see the potential of this software go to waste. Adobe really doesn’t seem to understand what web developers need. Fireworks was more than half the reason I’ve been buying CS licenses and upgrades. I am also disappointed in what they let Dreamweaver become, but that software is easily replaced by other tools out there. Fireworks was unique. Shame.

+1 – DW / Fireworks was the only reason for my purchase of CS4 and CS5. Now I am really getting upset. They need to reverse this decision now. It is not a matter of financials and focus. It’s a matter of passion and enthusiasm from customers who care about the tools they use.

The one thing that Fireworks does brilliantly that is not included in any other Adobe product is the ability to produce vector based artwork efficiently. If CC is going down the line of smaller discrete products, then please strip Fireworks of all but the vector design and output and release it as a small CC app!

For the record, I can’t imagine being able to work as productively using any other current Adobe application as a replacement for Fireworks.

By zoe - 4:36 AM on May 14, 2013

I really impressed to see so many fireworks fans in here lamenting , requesting, advising Adobe about the demise of Fireworks. Adobe people now must start realize their blunder and change their mind. i really wonder why they don’ t like this wonderful tool which is not only good for web but also for prototyping, printing purposes as well. Please rethink your decision and respect millions of Fireworks users and fans.

cheers

By SimonH - 5:24 AM on May 14, 2013

I’m not a professional web designer (so perhaps not Adobe’s target market) – I use Fireworks for occassional image edits of either photos for website/blogs, or logos/icons/simple illustrations e.g. to create, resize, change background, etc. I last upgraded to Fw MX in 2004 but was going to buy again but from my trial of Fw CS6 couldn’t see much difference. I have tried Inkscape but always end up back in Fw!

I do have Ps 7 which cost a lot of money but I rarely use because it was just way too complicated for occassional use – I almost always use Fw instead. Oh, and I work in a corporate environment (Win 7, 64 bit) so the Mac programs are no use. I can justify $250 on something like Fw but can’t really see an alternative and am reluctant to spend money with Adobe for an EOL product.

PS. I’ll also need to find a way to open Fw source files in a different vector editor too (not obvious to me how).

By Petra van Leusden - 6:23 AM on May 14, 2013

Adobe had really let us down here! I use Fireworks on a daily basis. The management of Adobe is clearly not in contact at all with the people who use their products. Awful awful decision.

By Omar - 10:02 AM on May 14, 2013

It wasn’t just the workflow I liked in Fireworks but Macromedia’s way of selecting layered items and applying effects. We’ll see how much of that makes it over to new Adobe products, but I’m not holding my breath.

Fireworks image export needs to be ported over to other Adobe products as well. It had no equal.

This is a really sad day for me. I’m a web designer/developer and I use fireworks almost everyday. Its so much faster to use then photoshop when creating mobile and web based designs. Adobe is really dropping the ball on this one.

By Web Designer - 1:39 PM on May 14, 2013

Big mistake Adobe. It’s not too late to change your mind though, we all make mistakes, and if you think long and hard about it and read what is being said here you will have to admit you are making one. Baby and bath water comes to mind.

It’s a sad update for most designers out there but whats even more sad is the decision of moving all adobe products to cloud. paying money at once and buying product is more practical , paying every month is additional burden on customers, I hope adobe some how understands this fact.

Say it isn’t so, Adobe. Fireworks is the foundation of all my workflow, to Dreamweaver, Indesign and Acrobat. I’ve been developing pages for over a decade, and was never able to devote enough time to learning Photoshop. I’m sure you can, and will, include all the ” new, task-focused tools” to PS. But think for a moment, all us Fireworks (and not PS) users will be in the dark. We won’t be able to find those tools in PS, much less use them.

By Wim Hovens - 2:25 PM on May 15, 2013

Oh My God! WTF!! First freehand (which I still consider superior to Illustrator to this day), and now Fireworks?? We use this for EVERY website we design! and for game and character graphics! HUGE mistake dropping it…

Do you even know your customer base?? How they use products?

Seriously, I’ve been in the industry 15years… Cut the ego “Adobe products are amazing” crap, they’re not… they make do. The worst day of my designer career was when you took over Macromedia… you ruined everything…

By Raja - 6:24 AM on May 16, 2013

I’ll always miss you Macromedia Fireworks- You were never an Adobe product.

The ability to create Pages and Frames in Fireworks come nothing close to all the confusing folder grouping that I see Photoshop users do.

Being able to click-select on the object, is way way better than photoshop.

Even the Pen tool in Fireworks is superior to Illustrator. The list is too long!!

Killing Fireworks is more likely some stupid Adobe tribal infighting than some lame “Better for our customers” declaration. Development teams fighting for turf, and the new guy (though better product) loses out.

By Kalli2000 - 12:07 PM on May 16, 2013

hello adobe, if you have forgotten, why fireworks is so great read these articles…

Gutted! that’s all I can say. I have been using Fireworks since Macromedia launched the first version and have moved with each new version – it is totally embedded in my every day workflow not only in web but e-learning design. I did a test compression in Photoshop and the same graphic in Fireworks and Fireworks compressed it much more and won hands down.

I could never understand why Adobe started shipping Photoshop with their e-learning suite when Fireworks clearly did a much better job of graphics..I suppose I should have guessed!

Adobe you need to realise that not everyone wants to move to your subscription model..I for one will be one of your previous customers..I wish to purchase software and get many years use from it, not have to pay for it over and over again month after month.

Now you’ve killed Fireworks, you’ve killed my custom..I’m off to find another product that I can OWN and that will serve me well for the next 14 years like Fireworks has. I’ll continue using my version of Fireworks until your goliath greed gets the better of you and you finally stop supporting it.

RSVP Fireworks – you are a legend – given birth by Macromedia – put to rest by Adobe.

Adobe think about and continue Adobe Fireworks, it can take more time to fix things and continue Adobe Fireworks Legacy. Im not Professional but Fireworks allow me to do my works, most of then for cash register logos creations like this one

so Fireworks its simple work, better design, and you can archive things by this amazing software, so don´t kill it and fight for customers and fight for Fireworks users, its more simple to give up than continue so you decide to give up, not good decision, not professional, please rethink again, no matter the time will w8 for Adobe Fireworks.

The fireworks community don’t show itself so often, that dosen’t meen it’s a small community. We are a lot of people using it and it’s currently the only tool that makes it easy to prototype. I wish there was an alternative so that i can stop using Adobes products.

Nobody thinks this is a good idea by Adobe, it’s rather stupefying this would be considered a viable option for Adobe going forward.

The only reason for the decision I can think of is Adobe is going completely ‘Cloud’ and it might cost too much to write the program properly – (Which they should and could have done ages ago) to make the transition to Cloud.

Photoshop is just….well, OK or barely adequate for producing and slicing web and mobile graphics in my opinion. Yes it can do it, but it’s not the program’s core competency. Photoshop is really for (shock – horror) editing photos!

Photoshop does not have the following web features….which Fireworks does really well!

– Easy 1 tool item selection, no need to change tools to select and modify a vector or raster item!
– Clunky slice naming
– Awful slice creation and selection
– No master pages (NO…. Smart objects are no comparison)
– No symbols (NO…. Smart objects are no comparison)
– No multiple pages – You can layout an entire website in Fireworks – no individual files or PSB’s for every page!
– No hotspots and dynamic linking (interactive prototypes)
– No speed – It’s so much faster to produce the web graphics you need,
– No ease of use – ever tried to save a single image for web to be told you need to define a slice first…. arghhhh!
– No easy to use actions panel – Ever tried using the Photoshop actions panel for basic or advanced features…. a world of pain!
– No defined base styles to get you up and working quickly
– The vector shape handling is awful, cant restyle vector objects to have round corners after it’s been drawn.
– No autoshapes, you can build some amazing dynamic items in fireworks
– No 9 Slice scaling
– No exportable / importable symbol libraries
– Why is applying a gradient in photoshop so painful, have to create a layer style and do everything in the little dialogue box.. simply mental.

….. i can think of about 1,000 reasons why i’d use Fireworks over Photoshop for web and mobile graphics!

I guess the new web tools to replace Fireworks will be re-hash or return to Adobe Image Ready?

What a disaster that was….. but it was genuinely better than Photoshop. It was Adobe openly admitting that Photoshop is not really good at this web stuff so here is a bolt on tool within Photoshop to do that awkward, difficult stuff!

As we all know they killed off Imageready a year or two later, in favour of Fireworks….. Why?…… Because it was simply better…..and not like Photoshop.

As Fireworks is the cornerstone of my business, i’ll be looking for another tool to replace Fireworks as my production app… I can already tell it won’t be Photoshop unless thay add some awesome new Fireworks like workflow.

Hoping the new tool whenever it appears – is something good and usable for web and mobile design like Fireworks.

If anyone from Adobe is reading this, it’s clear you don’t know your customers well enough to make an informed decision about the future of Fireworks. Not all decisions can be made by simply looking at a piece of paper with numbers on it, or a gut feel. I’ve worked with software managers who think this ‘agile’ way and it’s to the detriment of the business in the majority of cases.

Why re-invent the wheel, there is an established brand and installed base – simply rebuild Fireworks and make it better.

What a sad move by Adobe. I wish FW’s code would be made open source so that the community (which is definitely a strong one) can develop it on its own if Adobe itself is losing interest. Fireworks is and has been one of the most useful web designing tools that ever existed. There might be other programs that can fill the gap but they are not from Adobe.

By Stephen Brennan - 4:29 AM on May 20, 2013

I am deeply disappointed with Adobe decision not to continue with Fireworks beyond CS6.

By bobotron - 6:42 AM on May 20, 2013

Amazing how all the best parts of Macromedia are dying in the hands of Adobe. I believed it when they said the best features of Freehand would get rolled into Illustrator, and it didn’t happen. And now Fireworks. I wouldn’t hold your breath hoping the unique features will ever come back in another Adobe product.

If anyone has any suggestions for web protoyping alternatives, let’s hear em! I think a few folks here use Omnigraffle.

By Fireworks Fanatic - 5:12 PM on May 20, 2013

Adobe,

I hope someone in your crew has taken the time to read and *really* think about the close to 1,000 comments of outrage in response to your decision. It’s not often that customers rave about their products (even when ‘new and improved versions’ have more crashes than the previous). Take it as a compliment.

We’ve expressed how much we absolutely love this tool and how efficient it makes us. It’s not that we haven’t tried Photoshop—we have—and it doesn’t deliver what we’re looking for. If I’m doing detailed photo retouching work, I can’t think of any other tool but Photoshop to accomplish that work. If I’m working on web mockups, I wouldn’t touch Photoshop with a 10 foot pole. Fireworks would be my one and only choice. Period. Hear us when we tell you that it takes 10 times longer to create something in Photoshop than it does in Fireworks, and that is not exaggeration. Hear us when we say this is an unwise decision.

If you are so confident in your suite of products, I can assure you that your biggest act of corporate goodwill would be to release Fireworks as Open Source. Give a gift that you will be remembered positively for. You have been the Microsoft of the design world for quite some time. Take that accomplishment with some caution and really listen while you have the chance because you’re playing a very dangerous game.

Outcomes: Your beloved FW users will strongly dislike your brand, and likely any product that doesn’t match FW. Since you haven’t announced an alternative to FW, we just can’t wait for you and this action reduces overall trust. This also means you have nothing to win us back. You lose revenue because we won’t adopt your new product and we the customer, lose a valuable tool. That’s called a lose-lose.

You will not look foolish if you overturn this decision. In fact, I think you’ll be met with an outpouring of support. And you can use all that we’ve shared to really make FW an even better product. It will likely be a huge boost for sales and great marketing event. Just think, you’ve uncovered every passionate FW user from around the globe. Use us to build a community that can take you to the next level.

A few words about Creative Cloud. Subscription should not be the only way to purchase your products. I understand that your software is being pirated, but most every software firm deals with this and you need to get over it. You don’t have any real competition so instead of worrying about crumbs a minority is stealing from under the table, focus on being innovative and giving your customers what they want. Can’t harp on this enough.

In closing,

We *really* want to see FW stay and continue to receive updates, support and new features.

Make a wish come true.

By Brendan - 2:02 PM on May 21, 2013

SOOOOOO well said. Fully agreed. For web design everything just takes too damn long with photoshop and illustrator. That was the whole point of Fireworks. An honestly I liked it even more when Adobe got their hands on it. So what gives?

By Kate - 11:34 AM on May 26, 2013

I completely agree with this. Waiting to see what you do kills my trust. Why should I commit to any new learning curve at Adobe? There IS such a things as supporting the product instead of waiting for big numbers and then throwing it away to start a bunch of new things. What do we do in the meantime? Stick to Fireworks and wait for death? I think his is all bout getting the money out of Creative Cloud. Perhaps the idea is to change so much so fast, no one wants to actually buy anything? Stop and think about that a minute. Huh?

Besides Sketch, anyone have any knowledge of non-adobe products to jump ship for?

This is the perfect example of why a monopoly does not work for the consumer. We don’t care. We don’t have to. If you are telling yourselves we are simply resisting change and so you don’t have to take his feedback seriously, you are seriously missing the point.

Our company will be abandoning Adobe products due to this. Although you “say” you will keep Fireworks…the writing is on the wall. You are a failure as a company, and have terrible leadership at the helm. We will be using Sketch and Pixelmator (at least until you buy them), and refuse to use your products, and will ardently encourage everyone we know and do business with to do the same. You are a failure. And should be embarrassed by your ineptitude.

Adobe guys are shutting down more products than any other IT company, and primarly for the web
1. There were Image Ready/GoLive workflow they were shut down
2. Than Fw/Dw/Flash/Flash Catalyst workflow
Flash Catalyst is shut down, now Fireworks. Flash is going their way too. It’s not they’re bad products, it’s Adobe’s bad planning. Why did Edge and Muse even created? It was better to work on Fireworks and Flash. But not for Adobe. You have succesful product on market and you shut it down to replace it with another product that no one uses…

And the best question is: Who says that Muse and Edge will last more than few years and that we should even try to start using them. I do not want to waste my time on learning product no one uses, and God knows if it is going to be accepted by the market.

This is so bad for Adobe. Company totally lost its compas during last few years…

By Brendan - 1:59 PM on May 21, 2013

If you aren’t going to upgrade it anymore, at the very LEAST make it available month to month. I don’t want to rent the whole suit for one app. Adobe just became useless to me. As a web designer, photoshop and illustrator can cut it if they have to, but fireworks was by far the best tool for web design. Everything is just faster and easier. The workflow in photohop and illustrator for web design is straight up annoying. Adobe is doing some seriously money grubbing greedy stuff. I would say stupid, but their not dumb. They know exactly what they’re doing, its just… hey, for once think about your customers instead of the money…

By Brendan - 2:13 PM on May 21, 2013

And just one more thing. The only reason I went to the CS cloud site was the start renting Fireworks. When I saw this was not possible… I left.

By Christian - 10:22 PM on May 21, 2013

TRUST!

Some important points – Not only is Adobe taking away our favorite tool, they are also making it so that we can’t rely on their tools. Like Branko and so many other have said, Why should I bother learning Adobe tools is they can be pulled out from under us at any time.

The only time I think it is okay to pull a tool is when the same company replaces it with better options (prior to killing it), which Adobe has clearly not done.

Adobe has embarked on creating a new collection of tools and services aimed at addressing the needs of today’s web designer – we’ve started with focusing on responsive layout, web animation and HTML, CSS and JavaScript code editing and are delivering new Edge tools to address these use cases. We are actively working on next-generation solutions for screen design and prototyping that we hope our existing Fireworks customers will love.
[/Quote]

The latest tools that Adobe is creating are useless for those of us who use fireworks for doing mockups and prototypes for web based applications made from Flex.

Second, Adobe, why don’t you release the next generation prototyping tool before announcing that you are no longer going to develop the tools we rely on? Lets face it Adobe mucked up Flash Catalyst pretty bad – reason Adobe completely ignored their customer feedback.

[Quote]
The show of support for Fireworks from the community has reaffirmed our belief that Adobe should continue to deliver dedicated tools for web designers – what follows Fireworks CS6 will be an revolutionary leap, designed from the ground up with the needs of the modern web designer front and center. To do this we need your help. We’d love to hear about how you work, what challenges you face, where you experience the most pain in your day to day design processes.[/Quote]

Again we are not all web designers, and why don’t you release this new revolutionary leap before killing Fireworks.

Wireframing/Prototyping/Web Design/Mobile App design, no other application will fill this gap….

Monetizing instead of listening to the community and industry.

By zoe - 1:12 AM on May 22, 2013

I Really doubt these Adobe people are really reading this ? Doubt it!!

By Jan Ove - 7:36 AM on May 22, 2013

Come on, guys. You ever use your own software? You just destroyed the only really usable app in your portfolio. Photoshop is a complete disaster when it comes to designing mobile apps and doing wireframes. Even though Fireworks is one of the world’s most buggy tools ever– it’s still miles ahead of PS when it comes to UI Design. Where are we gonna go next after you axed FW? Surely not in Photoshop’s direction, that’s for sure.

Congrats, Adobe. You just gave Sketch and Bohemian Coding a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to disrupt you guys big time. And here’s to hoping they succeed.

Most. Stupid. Decision. Ever.

By nocturnal YL - 8:18 AM on May 23, 2013

Bye, Adobe. I was prepared for this when I first heard about the acquisition.

By Mark - 11:10 AM on May 23, 2013

Amazing. Fireworks is the closest thing there is to a perfect Web mockup tool and they’re killing it. Why not make Edge tools use the output of Fireworks rather than reinventing the wheel?

A friend of mine purchased fireworks and I love its export features versatility and format support. Adobe continues to not disappoint.

By Paul - 4:08 PM on May 24, 2013

Every Designer I know who gives a try to FW never went back to PS.

By Dan - 6:23 AM on May 25, 2013

Sad to hear this. I’ve been waiting for Adobe to fix all the annoying bugs and performance issues until finally committing to using Fw, instead of using Ps. Looks like that’s never going to happen. What a shame. I would have been in heaven, if they only ported over the adjustmen layers / layer effects from photoshop properly.

By Aniko - 12:45 PM on May 25, 2013

Fireworks is the only Adobe tool I use daily. I am skilled above average at using Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign, After Effects. But as a user interface designer my center tool is Fireworks, it has been for 11 years now. Photoshop is genius in so many ways, but not when it comes to UI design. Please do not kill it!

By Lennin Ruiz - 4:13 AM on May 26, 2013

Every Designer I know who gives a try to FW never went back to PS. / its a pitty if its no longer will be developed / Yo use FW y deje de usar PS hace mucho, es mi complemento junto a DW para el diseño web /

Same here. The webdesigners I showed it to and who actually took Fireworks for a test run jumped ship and hardly ever used Photoshop after that except for updating legacy projects. But maybe that’s also the real reason why Adobe are killing Fireworks. People were leaving an expensive PS/AI-combo in favor of one cheaper program.

By Kate - 11:19 AM on May 26, 2013

I finally forked out for Creative Cloud for one year JUST to get Fireworks but see how it fits into the product line. I plan to buy ONE product at years end. I don’t want 7 tools to do this. I want one. Should we buy Edge? PS? Will eps files be supported in PS? Whet is the plan? I think this is a huge mistake but I guess time will tell.

I hope another company sees this, and kicks your ass with the next Fireworks replacement solution. ( said with love;) because I will jump ship in a heartbeat if they do.

This is an absurdly, ridiculously wrong decision. When it comes to rapid prototyping, or creating comps for a website FW has no competition, it has been a great time saving tool since day one, and I’ve never went back to PS which is utterly useless for designing a web UI. I know a lot of designers feel the same way.

So now you guys will take this unrivalled, mature and totally awesome product and make it redundant because why exactly ? There is nothing overlapping between FW, PS and AI from a web designers standpoint, because we don’t even need to open those applications while we have FW to use.

FW has it’s purpose, it’s fanbase, it’s being used and no one is complaining about overlap. Please leave it be. It will keep making money for you.

A friend just shocked me with the announcement that Fireworks had reached end of development!! I have been using it for all my website design and web graphics since version 3 and have been recommending it for years. I agree that Photoshop has been stealing ideas from Fireworks for years but would never use Photoshop for website design. I see Photoshop as my photo editor for print designs. I don’t know what to say Adobe!!

Fireworks is not dead since may 2013, Fireworks was killed 2006, when Adobe got it from Macromedia.
Thanks to lot of extensions Fireworks kept alive the last 6 years, and it will for sure kept alive another 6 years thanks to many great extension developers.

Very true. Fireworks is already a time saver for UI work etc and the extensions help shave off even more time from your workflow helping your get things done even faster. Macromedia really did have the right idea when they created fireworks. Sad Adobe doesn’t see it.

By Marco Camelo - 5:17 AM on May 28, 2013

I hope Adobe builds a new software to replace Fireworks and not just send users to Photoshop /Illustrator, these tools will never match the easy and fast workflow of FW and we dont need that complexity. I think the best way for Adobe and the users its a brand new tool opimized just for UI design.

When Adobe acquired Macromedia. I knew FW’s time was limited since they just added small changes on each release but in spite of this it was still the best design tool for screen / web.

Most people use the web nowadays or anything that involves a touch screen / monitor which translates to screen design = fireworks. User Friendly , Faster , Functional

Adobe is a company and I know this FW cut is more of a business or cost cutting move but it should also think about the consequences. I have no doubt other programs with similar functionalities of FW ( bitmap | vector ) will fill the void of FW and compete with Adobe’s two giants , PS and AI.

If they could reverse the decision but end FW a year later or something. I wish they could fix some of the bugs / add minor features and FW can still run for years to come even without updates.

By DanCo - 7:44 AM on May 29, 2013

Keep the development on Fireworks and ditch Photoshop!!

By Rob Bryan - 9:49 AM on May 29, 2013

Bye Bye Adobe!.

I was already wavering with the new subscription model, but this is the final straw!

By Luke - 1:11 AM on May 30, 2013

I’m terribly disappointed but not surprised I guess! Fireworks is our “go to” program at work and something that I’m on 10+ hours a day. Nothing matches it for simplicity and speed when it comes to creating compelling site design.

Once again you have taken a beautiful program that macromedia crafted and destroyed it! Thanks Adobe, thanks a lot.

Luke

By WebAD - 5:58 AM on May 30, 2013

Id be surprised if Adobe manage to make a product with all the benefits that FW has, it seams that they cant see that they sit on the only tool that is really good for the UX/UI design, and now kill it off.
The one that pushed this decision should be punished and loose his/her job tbh as that person have no clue what so ever what your customers want and uses in there everyday job. This is a decision that hurts your brand Big time.

Adobe have to come up with a new tool and tbh we all know how long it takes to get rid of the bugs in a new tool. Moving all the good stuff from FW into PS will make it to hard to work with, you have a perfect setup atm, with PS for photo editing and FW for smooth UX/UI creation and mockups, not to mention the FW slices and export that is so much better then the PS to work with and creates smaller/better files for the web.

Tbh i cant see how you would manage to get out of this as a winner without changing you decision about this and take FW back into the family and use the most valuable source you have your devoted users to make it even better.

As mentioned many times before in the comments you are running out of trust here, for some ppl you have no trust left. So please reconsider this rash decision and stop turn your head and see that this road is gonna get you lost.

I used to dismiss Fireworks for doing what Photoshop was doing already, then I learnt how to use it and have used little else this year. Now you’re getting rid of it…thanks. I hope someone there has to export 300+ buttons for a site in Photoshop, it takes ages – as apposed to a few minutes in Fireworks. This is one of many features you must focus on replacing soon. Along with multiple page layout, master pages, HTML export, 9-slice scaling…there’s too many to mention. Please don’t cram all this into Photoshop, it’s too big as it is.

It seems with this and only allowing cloud subscribers to use their products Adobe are abusing their ‘industry standard’ status to the max. I’d preach caution, Quark used to be like that before everyone went over to InDesign. It only takes one decent alternative (and they’re already out there) and you could find yourselves being far less important than you think you are. Yes your products are good but asking us to rent them off you at a high price and removing the very tools we want to use because you feel like it smacks of complacency.

Of course Fireworks CS6 will still be available for sometime but I’m sad no new development will be forthcoming. Muse is OK, maybe better for somethings but it’s not a design tool. I’m keeping a keen eye on the Edge suite and hope something good appears in the next year or so. It better had or this rates as a total cock-up by Adobe…

By Eric Stoltz - 2:28 PM on May 30, 2013

If Adobe just tried to cram all the good things about Fireworks into Photoshop it will be a disaster. Photoshop is already so bloated that it’s tough to find your way around and to remember little things like how to resize a rounded rectangle keeping the same border radius. When I leave Fireworks to try to do this in Photoshop, it’s always a time-burner.

The other really horrible thing Adobe could do is to create an entirely new product that included generation of HTML, CSS and the whole kitchen sink. We don’t need that. I already can code HTML and CSS or can hand things off to developers. I don’t need some crappy HTML and CSS generated in the same bloated way InDesign generates epub files. Microsoft already has the bloated, crappy, non-semantic HTML market covered. We need a tool where vectors and rasters can live peaceably together, click to select and edit, make something x pixels by x pixels directly, and accommodate quickly the million little changes we are faced with as UX and design professionals in the real world.

Well, everybody has seen this coming since the transfer from MM… so predictable.
Users? Who cares about them?

By Catherine - 5:26 PM on June 1, 2013

I saw this day coming when Macromedia sold out to Adobe.

I’ve been a Fireworks user since version 2. There is no other tool like it. It is the only graphics program I know of that successfully optimizes images for web use, especially 8-bit png, and the vector tools are as good as it gets, IMO. Everything else creates bloat, especially Photoshop. While Adobe ruined the FW UI when they did away with floating windows (I CANNOT tolerate the tabbed interface), it is still the best vector program around and handles digital photos adequately as well. FW is the only graphics program I’ve needed for 10 years.

I have zero interest in subscribing to a cloud service just to do my graphics work. Anything online will be far too slow for me. I don’t do animation. I don’t do collaborative projects that need cloud sharing. I don’t slice up design mock ups to build bloated web templates and certainly don’t want or need a tool to do that for me.

I can’t image that these new “edge” tools Adobe is contemplating will give me anything I need that I don’t have now with desktop FW. It will just cost me more and probably cause me endless frustration.

Somebody PLEASE tell me there is a viable alternative out there somewhere…

By Jacq - 5:22 AM on June 2, 2013

Good riddance. There are tools like fireworks that (no offense) do it better, fireworks wasn’t needed. But of course people are used to what they’re used to, so I’m going to get lots of negative (perhaps hateful) replies like this article has, but I won’t miss fireworks.

By Jacq - 5:24 AM on June 2, 2013

And yes I have tried to use fireworks for web design and UX/UI work, I found it to be limiting. As it it’s tool set limited the UI’s I could design making it unhelpful.

Do not make us work in several tools just because you say they overlap with FW. FW existed before you created all the overlap. We do not want several tools when one tool did the job and did it well. We are today’s designers and developers.

Listen to your customers who use your products. Stop trying to force us into the “Adobe way” and listen to us as we are and have been telling you how we want to work. We do not want more tools. We want Fireworks and we want the attention it deserves.

The Adobe way ends up with over-bloated software that is unnecessarily way to complex to even do simple tasks. Don’t believe me? Ask your customers.

By Charlie - 8:50 AM on June 5, 2013

Amen.

By Jack - 8:15 AM on June 6, 2013

I agree we dont need extra tools fireworks is a perfect product, they just need to keep up the work not ohh this is to hard forget it photoshop does not have half the graphical editing tools fireworks has because photoshop ironicly was created for PHOTO editing adobe made a big mistake

By Eric - 6:46 AM on June 4, 2013

This is a bummer, man. A real bummer.

By ago - 4:55 AM on June 6, 2013

Adobe, please make a new statement!
UI Designers need fireworks!

By Jeune - 11:58 AM on June 6, 2013

Like many of you, I’ve been using Fireworks as my sole web design tool for years now. One question I have is what will happen to all our old files that need to be accessed, or changed? PS doesn’t support the layers or filters as well as it should to become a replacement. And someone mentioned a platform upgrade could kill legacy versions of FW (we’ve seen it happen before), so that means we keep an old computer around to access our old files? Bad news.

By adam baker - 12:08 PM on June 6, 2013

I personally taught the basics of visual design and UI design, through Adobe Fireworks, to more than 700 Google engineers, product managers, and others. No tool matched, or will match it in the foreseeable future, for that kind of practical instruction and practical work.

I’m sort of bummed, but not really. I LOVE fireworks.. but not for the reason most might assume. I can hand code my own prototypes. What I’ll miss most are the rock solid and intuitive approaches to slices, objects and layers. Layers in Photoshop are the most annoying thing to work with and so counter intuitive IMHO. The object locking and hotspot usages for slicing and dicing web images is SO much better in FW. I can only hope that the PMs on PhotoShop will finally listen and give use a slicing model that is worth a darn. I can’t understand why any production artist or developer who cares about efficiency and quality would sit through the pain of trying to slice and dicing in PS. So, to bring this full circle, I use FW for compositing assets from AI, PS, LR, etc into a nice clear environment at the point where development starts. I can’t even imagine how or where in the CC collection the equivalent vector and object level controls will reside??? Honestly, they’ll need to combine all the products into a single UI to do… just maybe…

By Toby Bridson - 2:34 PM on June 11, 2013

It’s a lost cause, if Adobe are too stupid and pig headed to listen there is not much we can do. What a ridiculous situation, we really WONT be supporting Fireworks but we will do some bug fixes etc to placate the masses – There are a lot of bugs in Fireworks due to Adobe’s blatant neglect – might be easier to just re-write Fireworks to support say…. 64 Bit!

This token offering of a feedback form is to purely measure how many people want and use Fireworks because they don’t really know how many users they have or who their customers are, under the presumption If they make enough noise maybe they will change their mind…

I think we will see the biggest backflip by Adobe in the coming months as they decide Fireworks is worth keeping after all and fire the idiot Marketing or strategy manager who suggested Fireworks should stop. Erghhh…. complete and utter morons.

Adobe, do us all a favour, and make a concrete decision.

Either end the product now and don’t prolong the agony and neglect, or support it properly and update the software.

“Fireworks IS the only reason we purchase Creative Suite”. That simple!

Most reputable apps produce PDF’s… No need for Acrobat!
Print is all but dead… Little need for InDesign or Illustrator!
Flash is dead to 50% of devices… No need for Flash!
We use Sublime and WebStorm for coding now… DreamWeaver is bloated!
On rare occasions, we may need PhotoShop’s content aware fill… Otherwise it is overkill for most everything.

I’d be pissed about this news, but something will fill the vacum, and it will likely be much less expensive. So should I say thank you Adobe?

I too am an avid Fireworks user and use it on a daily basis for my web and mobile design work. Fireworks offers incomparable productivity gains over Photoshop and Fireworks. I would strongly urge Adobe to reconsider it’s decision.

I’ve started to switch to Illustrator and will note the limitations I am finding in Illustrator with the anticipation that Adobe will not be changing it’s mind about FW; or perhaps Adobe will address these limitations to better ease a transition to Illustrator from Fireworks (these limitations I’ve also submitted as feature requests for Illustrator). In addition, I’d like to share what I’ve found in my transition. I also decided agains’t Photoshop, because even tasks which are simple in FW are imposible w/ Photoshop, for example you can’t resize an existing rectangle w/ specific dimensions

– COLOR PICKING: You are unable to easily pick a color in Illustrator as you woud in Fireworks. In Illustrator, try editing an object’s stroke color by simply selecting any color on the screen; it’s not possible. In FW, you simply select an object, click on the stroke color box and mouse away from the color fly-out to easily select any color on the screen. In illustrator this simple way to select a color is not possible, instead you’re limited to the color picker dialog or the swatches (which forces you to select the color beforehand), but you can’t simply select a color from anywhere on the screen as you would w/ FW.

– INNER SHADOW: It doesn’t exist in Illustrator! Closest thing is an Inner Glow which is very limited. I found multiple examples on the web on how to create the effect of inner shadow, but all required multiple steps (some needing to flatten the very object you’re trying to add a shadow too). The only solution I found was a custom filter someone created using SVG. In FW, all you have to do is apply a Inner Shadow Filter and you’re done.

– ART BOARDS: To FW user’s, this would be closest thing to a page. For the most part artboards are great, you can even export all artboards as seperate files as you would do a File > Export > Pages to Files on Fireworks. The one drawback w/ art boards is that you can’t resize all artboards to the same size.

By Ransome - 2:06 PM on June 13, 2013

This is very disappointing. Adobe should reconsider this decision or they stand to lose a lot of customers.

Rather than complain (which is really what I want to do), I’ll just ask (fearing the answer): Adobe, what do you suggest we replace Fireworks with? I’ve not ventured into all of the new products with funny names introduced in the last year (Edge, Reflow, Edgeloop, Muse, etc). Are you suggesting that I try one of those as an alternative to Fireworks? If so, which one(s)?

By Ottobyte - 10:48 AM on June 18, 2013

Adobe are out of touch with the modern web workflow. Never really liked Fireworks since it was sold from Macromedia, back then it was a great tool, but every time I’ve tried it, it’s really an “uncomfortable” Mac app and doesn’t fit in with my other tools. I’m all set on Sketch which is the best alternative right now.

By Phil - 11:50 AM on June 18, 2013

I see there has now been a bug fix update for Fireworks. Good, about time. Now, how hard was that to do? Only took a year… Ouch. I hope it is not that long till the next one. If Adobe are smart, they are already quietly working on resurrecting Fireworks.

NB: I tried using PS again the other day. Every time I come to use it I go “no how exactly again do I do that?” – I hate it just because of that, nothing is obvious. I very rarely have that problem with Fireworks, which implies it has a much better UX design.

By Alex - 1:48 PM on June 18, 2013

It appears that Fireworks is not compatible with Illustrator CC – Can’t copy CC vectors into Fireworks. This is unacceptable.

By Dave - 5:03 AM on June 19, 2013

From above; “Adobe has embarked on creating a new collection of tools and services aimed at addressing the needs of today’s web designer – we’ve started with focusing on responsive layout, web animation and HTML, CSS and JavaScript code editing and are delivering new Edge tools to address these use cases. ”

I note the question “Is Adobe proposing that existing Fireworks customers switch to Photoshop?” was not really answered – and danced around.

If it is being intimated that graphics designers and image developers for the internet community should use the “in my view” overbloated Photoshop instead of the mean sleek, lite and adept FW for the same work projects – then something is being misconstrued in Adobe’s interpretation of the internet industry.

What replaces FW is truly going to be a revelation – or embarrassment.

By Damion - 10:58 AM on June 19, 2013

If Adobe was smart they would use FW as their core and expand on its prototyping features giving it the abilities like Auxure has for example. Also above there is that link talking about they are working on a new screen and prototyping app.

By Salvador Krakowsky - 4:49 PM on June 19, 2013

Here is my use escenario for Fireworks (E True Hollywood Story): We code C++ applications that people use everyday.. (think ATM software), how do you think that stuff got made:

Adobe, I really hope, You will care a little about all these comments here.
I can’t understand that such a great company doesn’t see the advantages of this great software. FW can’t be compared with any other software on this planet. How can you throw away something with such value?

FW is not just passion, it is productivity on the highest level! There is nothing else, that makes it possible to work so fast and easy for any Web Graphics.

Please sell it or make it Open Source, or be smart and listen to your costumers!

By Thomas Brückner - 4:30 AM on June 20, 2013

This is very, very disappointing. I love Fireworks since the very first release. Photoshop cannot close this gap, as it is not very well suited for web graphics design. In fact, no other tool known to me comes close to Fireworks when it gets to web graphics development. I also would not see the the need for more “task based” tools, since the Fireworks workflows already perfectly match my requirements. Of course I will give them a try, and maybe you will be able to convince me. But for now, I will definitely miss Fireworks once it won’t work anymore due to substantial changes in the underlying OS platforms.

By Jim Lee - 11:30 AM on June 20, 2013

These guys are all correct. Adobe, really, really, you need to listen to what these people are saying. I have used every version of every one of your products since they were born, right up to the CC versions. I have also relied on Fireworks since the day it was born (and Quark, if you want to bring up another sore spot). When Macromedia owned Fireworks and Dreamweaver and Flash they really kickstarted interactivity. Adobe has not carried the interactive/web torch well.

Yes, people will pay to know they have every feature possible. But the people who rely on your products for their day to day livelihood and who know them better than you know them yourselves — these people appreciate things that save them TIME. Fireworks is so much more intuitive and just makes it fast to get the job done.

Simple things that save time — things that Illustrator and Photoshop STILL suck at. For example: try cutting and pasting an image from any other program and pasting it into Ph or Ill… Why in the world, doesn’t command Z work like every other program in the world? Why can’t you even have consistent shortcuts across your own products? Why can’t your software even work with itself in an intuitive way?

Try cutting and pasting an image FROM photoshop into any other piece of software. There is no comparison.

Fireworks lets you get in and get out. It plays nice with others. Plugins made it easy to export states, layers, pages, quickly to separate documents, or just to export a single element from a right click menu. Its about workflow. Its about helping creatives create, not interrupting the process every 5 minutes with some stupid enhancement to justify incrementing the version and extracting more dollars. The tools should stay out of the way and let the creative process flow. I shouldn’t have to devote hours or days or years of training to learn the goofy Adobe way of doing things. I shouldn’t have to memorize sheets of shortcuts to just jump in and start creating.

Bah. I’m wasting perfectly good advice on idiots who have a grand vision, exciting intentions, and very little grounding in the realities of the creative world.

I have to lend my voice to this long list of disappointed Adobe customers. Without a specific replacement in place or near launch, Adobe must continue with Fireworks if it really understands how designers work in the real world.

As clever as Photoshop is, Adobe has become obsessed with developing this print based tool over Fireworks. Strategically a big mistake made some years back by Adobe.

Each time I hear a presentations from Adobe about Photoshop I am amazed at how clever the engineers are in designing the interface and tools. But I also realise they are putting their energy into the wrong application. It’s Fireworks that needs these efforts. Maybe not the current application as it has been long neglected, and a ground up design and build is probably what’s needed. But that is no reason to continue to favor Photoshop over Fireworks in the development of CC.

If Adobe could stand back for a moment and look at this from the designer point of view (the customer) they would understand that rapid prototyping and rapid development run hand in hand. With Fireworks we conceive and execute on the fly.

Not everything is code or css, we are still artists, so we need a canvas to create on. At the moment that’s Fireworks. If Adobe don’t provide that, then another vendor will (probably via the Apple App Store).

What are you doing Adobe? Using the logic of “Designing for the screen in 2013 is incredibly different to designing for the screen in 1998″ and then saying use this old photo editing tool called PhotoShop instead shows how completely out of touch you guys are.

I hope that whoever is making these poor decisions is listening to the responses here and rectifies it quickly *Cough* Microsoft Xbox One *Cough* with one of the following options:

1. Reinstating Fireworks within the new CC lineup.
2. Adding all Fireworks Application functionality to Photoshop (vector as bitmap, pages, etc)
3. Replace Fireworks with a similar but improved new product.

Simply telling web designers that we are going to have more applications that are even more specialized with the removal of Fireworks is is a horrible idea.

WE DO NOT WANT MORE APPLICATIONS THAT CLUTTER UP OUR WORKFLOW.

ALL WE WANT IS ONE “DO IT ALL” APP THAT MAKES OUR LIVES EASIER.

I believe I speak for most people when I say we will gladly pay you the same amount of money for that one great application rather than a handful of poorly designed tools that incumber our best of intentions.

I Love Fireworks! It is my absolute favorite thing from Adobe/Macromedia. Second is Dreamweaver.

Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign … They are great for those projects when you need the features they are known for. But I can quickly and easily do about 80% of my graphics work and 90% of my design (planning) work in Fireworks. I have learned to love it and the features that I once found overwhelming are now where I turn for inspiration. (especially playing with gradients, textures, and patterns when I want to give a simple website a little touch of “unique”.)

There are places where someone who is more used to other Adobe tools could get confused in fireworks. Hot-keys to rearranging layers is one thing that comes to mind. But for the things that are inconsistent, to be honest – I like how Fireworks does it better.

The only places where I find it annoying are: When I have too much open on my computer, it seems to use a significant portion of RAM. Then again – I am known for being too hard on my computer’s resources. And what is the maximum file size? Something like 6,000×6,000 pixels? I don’t remember exactly, but I know I have needed bigger files a few times. (then again , not sure if my computer could handle them even if Fireworks did support them.)

By Mezza - 10:28 PM on June 20, 2013

Damn! Photoshop is so slow to use. We’ve just started to do more web work, but our designer uses Photoshop because she’s only used to print. I need Fireworks to get things web ready. Yes – make Fireworks an independent product, let it go open source … or sell to another company that values it properly.

For me it’s simple. The only way Adobe is going to convince me to put the ball and chain of a Creative Cloud subsription around my neck is by continuing to REALLY develop Fireworks or something VERY similar and equally user friendly.

I am a webdesigner and interface designer specialized in look & feel-creation, but I also need te be FAST because the kind of corporate projects I do force me to do lots of updates and change requests along the way.

Therefore Photoshop nor Illustrator are viable options to me, nor one of those new tools you seem te want to propose as alternatives for some reason. Abandoning the Fireworks-workflow would cut my productivity at least in half.

By Camille Prott - 11:16 AM on June 21, 2013

Adobe, now I understand why quit Fireworks… I tested the Preview of Edge Reflow and I can tell… I am crazy about this… Now I see that Fireworks, even being the best web design solution, was far far away from what we really need. Reflow is a great achievement! Thanks for this… The entyre Edge suite is amazing… It changes the way we create content for web. It gives us, designers, the control and the certainty to see exactly what we design turned in code. Amazing… Thanks!

By ktc - 5:53 PM on July 11, 2013

I just tried the Reflow preview release. Seems pretty useless for building a template from a PSD file, which is a large portion of what I use FW for. From the Reflow description, it doesn’t sound like it really offers much that Firebug combined with Responsive View mode in Firefox don’t. Maybe I’m missing something…

By Chad - 1:00 PM on June 22, 2013

Bring back ImageReady!

By paevo - 12:40 PM on June 24, 2013

Edge Reflow has nothing whatsoever to do with Fireworks, it’s a CSS tool for responsive design. Besides, they announce on the ER website that it will integrate with PS, so they aren’t planning on replacing FW with anything similar.

By shiny - 3:17 AM on June 24, 2013

Fireworks is smart, easy to use, better than photoshop. Adobe dislikes Fireworks, but we love Fireworks!

I guess I don’t have to repeat all the stuff above. Been using Fireworks since Version 1 and I sure as hell won’t be starting to create my layouts in Photoshop. Who started this strange habit anyway?! It’s madness! People are strange.

People are always amazed at how fast I can do web design using Fireworks as compared to the other people in my office who use Photoshop. It’s madness to use Photoshop. I hope I can use Fireworks CS6 forever!

Fireworks is the one program on my computer than I cannot do without. The speed in which you can create and change web graphics makes it essential to any web designer. Please continue Fireworks in the new CC format.

I will also be using Fireworks as long as possible. Nothing comes close to the power of Fireworks for screen graphics. So many features (vector & raster in the same document, auto-shapes, master pages, shared layers, auto shapes, pixel perfect placement, 32 bit PNG, so many blend modes, etc.) are still not available in other Adobe products.

By Ivan kopman - 3:05 AM on June 27, 2013

As a graphics/Web design package I find Fireworks unrivalled and I have no inclination to switch to anything similar. If Adobe are not willing to continue developing the software they should do the the decent thing and sell it on to another software house.

Suspending Fireworks is – from a business perspective – a smart idea at the first glance for Adobe. Forcing customers to pay monthly or yearly for the software they use too.

Adobe can do this because Adobe is a monopolist. There are still no real alternatives for the flagship products like Photoshop, Illustrator or Fireworks available. Unfortunately.

But the revenge will come as soon as the first real alternative appears. The customers will honor the fact that they are raped pay-apes from Adobe’s point of view. A lot of them will switch as soon as possible. There is no doubt.

Adobe is one of the most hated and most customer unfriendly software companies on this planet. Anyway Photoshop is a work horse for many people. But Fireworks too. Suspending Fireworks and telling people to use Photoshop instead is like telling a goldsmith to use hammer and anvil to create small and filigree chains. It is a bad joke for most of us users.

Adobe can tell many stories why the suspend and why it’s better for customers. In fact it’s only better for Adobe. Having less home grown product canibalization and having each month big money from the slaves they made over the year.

Anyway… Adobe will pay that bill later on. The pressure on customers increases and the chances for developers getting a big piece of the cake with an real alternative cannot be better. So it is a matter of time yet until we get real alternatives. If this happens: Good bye Adobe.

Until then most of us a forced to pay to the racketeers at Adobe. And at least i hate them for this. But i have no chance… If a customer delivers PSD-Files i have to use them. A discussion about different formats with a customer is pointless and much more worse for business than paying each month protection money to be able to open files already created.

Thank you Adobe for raping me. Thank you for asking me. Thank you for taking my money to give me superbloatet paid memberships. Thank you for beeing a racketeer forcing me to pay month by month even for read only access to my files.

By Ruh - 6:39 PM on June 27, 2013

Unbelievable news – I totally rely on FW as it is MADE FOR WEB.

I absolutely love the PAGES feature – does PS have that?
I love the Header/template feature – does PS have that?
I love the quick and easy point and select graphic, not having to search through layers like PS.
I love the quick vector tools and full vector mode/scalability. Not so in PS.
I love the speed of work that can be done in FW, not so in PS

If you can port these features over to PS, maybe I will learn to use it, but sadly I feel the DEDICATED web/mobile design app is being lost.

Very very bad move Adobe.

By Kevin - 10:38 PM on June 27, 2013

I use Fireworks for my work 99% of the time out of all the Adobe applications I have. It is a gigantic shame this is happening. I understand you’re still selling Fireworks but what good is it if you only *may* be supplying bug fixes and it’s not for certain (and for how long until it’s discontinued for good?). I can never do my work the same way without Fireworks. Never.

Adding css properties panle to illustrator and copy css styles to photoshop and they think they should stop develop fireworks. I love u for great products, and I also hate you for stupid ideas like this

Adobe is a shameful company for putting an end to this program. They never took it with all they had to begin with. They bought out the competition, after suing them time after time, then they neglected the best kept secret Fireworks from advancing further, and finally they are putting an end to one of the most user friendly powerful programs ive ever used. Next they should put an end to Dreamweaver.

By Rob - 10:15 AM on July 1, 2013

I feel sick to my stomach.

I am truly disgusted by this news.

Adobe has always let web designers down (ie. the recent deletion of the Browser Lab). Adobe does not care about the previous Macromedia products and is simply destroying them bit by bit.

HOW ON EARTH CAN WE USE PHOTOSHOP FOR SIMPLE WEB IMAGING TASKS?!?

ARE YOU THAT IGNORANT ADOBE??

I will do anything to not give these people a single penny ever again. The time has come for a new company to cater for us designers and take Adobe out of the game.
The web designers are the tastemakers in todays world and yet Adobe treats us like dirt. It is truly appalling that a company can act like this.

But then, if you look at their history, this is exactly what they have done for years.

By Nando - 2:31 AM on July 18, 2013

We are not all web designers.

Fireworks is NOT ONLY FOR WEB DESIGNERS!

There is no tool that can compare to Fireworks in quality for vector illustrations for the screen.
No, illustrator is not that good. Lets not talk about its usability and how artists have to fight to do simple things in AI.

And whomever does not know this, is because they are ignoring very much what Fireworks is and what it can do.

Period.

By Meir Benezra - 12:39 PM on July 1, 2013

I love adobe muse. It is a great tool to produce html. But its approach as a layout tool is nothing compared to really designing in fireworks. The ability to draw efficient vectors almost as good as illustrator and have the ability to edit bitmap just enough. The new tool that is being developed should be the real marriage of muse, reflow, photoshop and illustrator. Yes fireworks has overlapping features from all these tools yet all those overlapping features together makes sense. Adobe please just give us the new robust css and jquery supporting, grid system working, animation ready, image map links supporting, bitmap and vector drawing with pixel perfect rendering and output, mobile supported, prototyping ready tool. fireworks has many timesaving features over photoshop although it lacks the quality. I am so excited for this new revolutionary tool and I am ready to learn new ways to create please just don’t disappoint.

By Alex M - 5:41 AM on July 2, 2013

As a web designer, Adobe Fireworks to me has been hands down the most essential tool for creating website graphics. I use all of Adobes image editing tools, however none of them offer the interface and workflow that fireworks offered. I think anyone who uses Fireworks will agree that you can create a web graphic in fireworks at least 3 times faster than in any other app.

Why are things such as pixel measurements, point to point gradients and shape drawing such a fiddly and complex task in Photoshop? Also Fireworks had exceptional support for exporting images in different formats and worked in RGB spectrum only, just like CSS colour does. It annoys me so much to see that people who use Fireworks export their UI graphics as sRGB because Photoshop works in that to then have sites with inconstant colours.

Please support Fireworks, you have no idea how much some of your web designers love it, who will probably consider leaving CC and using alternate software. You have enough money Adobe, whats the problem?

By CB - 8:54 AM on July 2, 2013

While I love Fireworks and don’t know if I will ever be able to use Photoshop as efficiently for web design as Fireworks, I’ve tried forcing myself to use Photoshop more often. However, all my work and fw.png’s have multiple pages, and when opening in Photoshop, Photoshop only can open the first page. Is there an extension that will allow Photoshop to open Fireworks pages or I suppose at worst convert all Fireworks pages into mutliple Photoshop files? I could have been fine with Fireworks for another 5+ years but without retina support it’s a nightmare. Since switching to Photoshop keeps seeming like less of practical option, thinking maybe my next Mac needs to be non-retina or a non retina cinema display and just continue using Fireworks CS6 forever until either Adobe sells it to another company or switch to another company anyway who focuses on products I use.

By Mahzian - 6:20 PM on July 2, 2013

I love Fireworks, I use it in conjunction with Photoshop and Illustrator but Fireworks is my go to program as a web designer. It allows fast and easy manipulation of objects which makes mockups and production of web graphics much quicker and easier than other programs.

I don’t really use the export of html out of fireworks as I code a lot of stuff by hand but for web graphics it can’t be beat, pretty disappointed you aren’t continuing updating it.

By Jeff - 5:41 PM on July 4, 2013

Assuming Adobe continues to make the CC suite compliant with FW, I don’t see what all of the anger is about? Everyone on this post has stated how much they love FW and can’t live without it. So obviously, it already a tremendous product with few flaws. It must not need much updating etc. Additionally, Adobe has said that they will continue to make FW available. So what is the problem? It isn’t being taken away and will most likely continue to work with the CC suite.

With that being said, I do not like the idea of modularizing the tools: one tool for this, one for that, another for something else. That seems like a foolish way to move forward.

By hoang - 6:30 AM on July 13, 2013

The problem, I think, is that ‘working’ today may not mean ‘working’ 6 months or a year or 2 or more from now.

I’m not sure which platform you are using, but major Mac OS X updates tend to create compatibility issues with ‘older’ programs. The concern that I, and I think many on here, have is that FW will again be left in the dust. This is the kind of neglect that slowly kills a program, by making it look like it’s the program’s fault.

‘Why don’t you just don’t update to the new OS X,” some would say. It’s an okay solution for a while, until you have to get new hardware…

So you can see why many on here are so angry with Adobe’s decision…

By James - 1:48 AM on July 5, 2013

Where’s the latest update on the new Fireworks’esque tool you’re building???

Excuse me for getting impatient but the announcement at the start of May was long time ago now! The design community needs to have a better idea of what’s in the pipeline.

Hurry up, and stop upsetting your customers.

By Gabriel - 11:09 AM on July 5, 2013

I can’t believe that, ADOBE CEO is blaming Fireworks about their own mistakes and incompetence? This is the greed of this company… I keep using Fireworks MX and I can say, nothing better than the original!

Is anyone at Adobe reading these comments? Hello? At this point 1,090 detailed comments, 99% of them demanding Adobe wake up to the fact that Fireworks is a very popular design tool for web designers.

We deserve a proper response from Adobe, since collectively a 1,090 customers on a CC subscription is valued at over half a million dollars each year to Adobe.

For professional web designers there are a just few critical design tools we need. An HTML editor (Dreamweaver, though we other vendor choices), a rapid development pixel-based graphics application (Fireworks), and perhaps a vector-based graphics application (Illustrator, through we now have other vendor choices). Your other new apps are cute, but experienced designers would rather have Fireworks in their Toolbox rather than Muse.

It’s not hard to see how Adobe could overnight see a massive shift by the professional web design community to other vendors (available in Apple’s App Store for example) with less expensive options.

Will Adobe stock holders later lament the fact that management got it so wrong.

By hoang - 6:23 AM on July 13, 2013

+1

There was a survey that was up for a while and now closed. I unfortunately found out about it right after it closed, and unable to add to it.

I hope Adobe realizes that they now have a legion of unhappy former customers who are now steering their organization software purchase elsewhere. That’s what I’m doing.

It’s sad that Adobe never invested in FW. It’s a testament to the strength of how good FW is that it still manage to be so great even as Adobe slowly tries to kill it version after version by reducing resources.

I can not understand this decision. Fireworks is by far a better tool than Photoshop. It’s faster, easier, and the output significantly better. It is designed for web designers. As a web designer that has been using it since the days of Macromedia, again I am seeing Adobe making big mistakes. I also had to live through the process of Business Catalyst being bought by Adobe and taking it downhill…

Makes me wish Macromedia was still in place…

NOT HAPPY!

By SC23 - 5:51 AM on July 7, 2013

This is the classic buy the competition and then toss them in the waste bin. Did anyone ever really think it was anything else? Just stop shoveling money to Adobe. It really is that simple. My last kit was MX and I refuse to play their crazy locked down online validation bs. There are many free alternatives to every one of their products. Walk away.. just.. walk..away.

By ktc - 1:53 PM on July 11, 2013

As much as I would like to walk away, I need a tool that will read the layered PSD files some designers send me, which I use to build out web sites and templates. FW does this beautifully now. What are the alternatives that can do that and handle both raster and vector graphics? I don’t know of any.

By SC23 - 9:41 AM on July 13, 2013

Gimp – Freeware – Drop In replacement for photoshop and all things graphics editor. Yes you can squeel about differences.. fact is.. it can do what you need and it is free..and did I mention free?

By tkam - 1:17 AM on July 8, 2013

Why are you doing this Adobe? First moving everything to the cloud and cutting out the people that want to own the software that they are paying for and now you are killing Fireworks. The only pro tool for web design? What are you thinking? Time for a new contender in the ring. Bye bye Adobe!

By Matt A - 5:33 AM on July 8, 2013

Sigh. It sure is a shame that Adobe want us all to work exactly the same way as they do. talk about an oxymoron in a ‘Creative Company’.

My thoughts resonate with a lot of the voice above, not going to waste my time here further, other then to say, I’ve been using FW since it was born. I don’t use it as main app, but use it enough to mourn its lose. It always is a lot quicker to open & work in then PS, for my needs. Shame for another Macromedia product to bite the dust. It all comes down to numbers, why spend money on developing FW when we can push everyone over other products. This suxs again.

oh and why would I want to pay $1200 / (2yr) CC subscription, when i’ve always been able to upgrade Master for under that amount (2 yearly), and the tires don’t go flat 3months later.

VERY VERY VERY sad news. For me FW is everything. I have been a fan of PS for a long time, but since I have started using FW I can’t use Photoshop anymore. Doing web sites with PS/AI is a nightmare. Please don’t kill FW. We really need this.

I am NOT a designer. There are times when I need to work with design artifacts or to edit simple graphics. Fireworks has been the only tool with which I am comfortable performing these tasks. Photoshop and illustrator require much more overhead. Fireworks needs to come back as a distinct tool. Does Adobe ever change these decisions? I think they should do so in this case. There is a huge barrier to entry for purchase of a Photoshop license compared to Fireworks and coupled with the overhead in usage this presents a significant barrier to folks not equipped to deal with Photoshop. In this case everything is not a nail. IMHO – We need distinct tools. Hope someone from Adobe will take a look at the passion that customers have for the product instead of just viewing the financials. Lost customers who are passionate will definitely cost more than any financial gains.

I hope they rethink this one.

By Robert Welburn - 4:21 PM on July 8, 2013

In 1975, Kodak invented digital imaging. Kodak then closed the digital division and put all their efforts into trying to convince people to use their other non-digital products instead. It killed the company. You can’t tell consumers what they “should” want!

Adobe. You may want people to use Illustrator. You may want them to use many of your other products. Nokia wanted everyone to use the Symbian operating system. Sony wanted everyone to use Betamax. Microsoft told the world they didn’t need a “Start” button. Coca-Cola told the word “New Coke” was the way! Look to the graveyard Adobe – there are lessons to be learned.

Do not kill Fireworks. The desire for such a product will not die with Fireworks, and then when some other company produces a similar product, your users will leave in droves!

By hoang - 6:14 AM on July 13, 2013

+1

this seems like a badly made decision on Adobe’s part. it’s not that FW users aren’t aware of other adobe products. it’s because other adobe products serve DIFFERENT needs & workflows.

sure, i can make an omelet using a pot instead of a pan. that doesn’t mean i’m going to do that. why use a less efficient tool for a particular task?

By Jeremias - 8:09 PM on July 9, 2013

I cant believe there will be no Fireworks CC!!! There is no other product like this by anyone. You have a product nobody else had, but ever since you got it from macromedia you’ve not known how to market it, when it is very unique and has no competition in its field. Fire those who fail to promote it, dont fire fireworks!

THIS IS A BIG APPEAL TO ADOBE FROM ALL ADOBE FIREWORKS USERS…. PLEASE RETRACT YOUR ANNOUNCEMENT AND SUPPORT FIREWORKS CC DEVELOPMENT and FUTURE UPGRADES!!!!

Whoever took this decision has no idea what Fireworks is to Web Designers!!! We can’t use multiple tools to get done stuff when we have a fantastic tool that already does what’s needed and in record time. PhotoShop CANNOT BE USED EXCLUSIVELY FOR WEB DESIGN. Period. NOR CAN ILLUSTRATOR. Unless you are going to rebrand Fireworks as another tool I think this is an extremely big mistake on Adobe’s part.

The interest generation that you talk about that is missing in Fireworks is probably because there are not that many bugs in Fireworks so our community is pretty quite in interacting with Adobe and most of the features already there are great so our community’s wants will be marginal as compared to Adobe’s Chunky PS and Pale IL.

Fireworks is THE most important tool in my day-to-day process! The sole reason I use Adobe web premium is because of that product. Without Fireworks Adobe is dead to me. I am sorry, but whoever (big guy?) decided to do this, just made the greatest mistake in Adobe’s history!

We use Fireworks to develop websites and apps. It cannot be replaced by Photoshop or Illustrator. Do not discontinue an incredibly valuable product.

By Damion - 8:50 AM on July 11, 2013

If you signed up above Adobe sent out its survey asking about what you would want to see in their new screen design tool. When going thru it I say about 95% of what they were asking already existed in Fireworks..LOL. So once again why was it killed off??

I, too, just filled out the survey, but before submitting it I downloaded the Illustrator CC trial (took about 3 f’ing hours to download – WTF?), hoping it might possibly be a passable alternative. It’s not. Gee, it can’t even crop a photo, imported PSDs are largely uneditable, and the font size in the UI is so tiny I can’t read anything in the panels. What a dog. And what a bad move for Adobe to “retire” FW without an alternative that doesn’t cost $50/month (FOR LIFE!), because you need to have both Photoshop and Illustrator to do what FW does alone now. I’m not paying Adobe $50/month under any circumstances.

At this point I don’t really buy Adobe’s claim they care about FW users and want to give us a better product. Seeing will be believing.

@KTC, I’m attempting to switch to Illustrator and posting what I’ve learned here (see my learnings posted above) If you can please post and share the limitations of Illustration that you’ve found here, I think that would be helpful to others and hopefully Adobe will see them too.

By Shaun - 4:05 PM on July 11, 2013

Adobe says: “…Due to this overlap and as well as our change in our product development focus, we have decided not to update Fireworks to CC and instead will focus on developing new tools to meet our customers needs.”

But FW *IS* a great tool and DOES meet your customer needs. Far more intuitive than Photoshop (since Adobe didn’t create it). I personally can’t stand how any of the Adobe products operate. To me, if it takes a manual and training to use, it’s lousy software. Yes, it is the standard, but in my view that doesn’t make it intuitive or good.

Fireworks – to me – just make “sense”. It does what I need it to do – and does it well. I can understand that with newer technologies that have emerged over the years that it could use some additions to help with web design elements. But what I’m afraid of is that the team that will design such apps will do it the “Adobe Way”. I don’t WANT the Adobe way. Which is why I bought and invested (both apps and stock) in Macromedia. I sold my stock when Adobe bought MM, as I don’t believe Adobe has the vision to do anything but the Adobe way.

I hope to be proven wrong, and will indeed give what Adobe comes up with a good chance. If it turns out to be a turkey, I would hope they admit their mistake and resurrect FW. Or at least sell off the rights to it and let someone else support the FW community. If Adobe believes in it’s future plans so much, what would be the problem with that?

By ktc - 4:32 PM on July 11, 2013

I believe the “change in our product development focus” was to figure out a way to make more money, or at least a steadier stream of income, which was at the request of shareholders, not users.

[Wanted to leave another comment as I just can’t stop thinking about this – I’ve used Fireworks since 2000 and consider myself and Expert at it and Web Design. I also use PS and IL when required for specific tasks]

IMO:
RIGHT FROM THE BEGINNING FIREWORKS WAS MADE AN OUTSIDER BY ADOBE

I seriously feel that the whole confusion of the tools (overlapping) is solely Adobe’s fault. When they bought out Macromedia I felt good about it coz I thought it would integrate the entire design community globally like nothing before and all the tools would benefit. I also thought it was a very smart move coz the macromedia community was doing great and increasing by leaps and bounds and what better way for Adobe to affirm its world leader status by adding to its arsenal. NEVER DID I THINK THEY WERE JUST TRYING TO TAKE OUT THE COMPETITOR in the Web Design Arena. They never understood its worth then and they still don’t understand FIREWORKS worth now. No change really.
I really want to ask the guys who made that first marketing decision of showcasing Fireworks as a Prototyping tool – “HEY DUDE(S), THEY ARE BOTH YOUR SOFTWARE NOW, DONT YOU SEE HOW MUCH MORE POWERFUL FIREWORKS CAN BE MADE WITH SOME OF PHOTOSHOPS FEATURES???” Instead they just went right in the other direction and made PS more like fireworks and created all the confusions. YOU ADOBE OWN A GEM OF A SOFTWARE IN FIREWORKS, DON”T DISOWN IT. It sounds really silly to all the people who have used Fireworks, Photoshop and Illustrator for 10 or more years. On a fun note: some of us might take it as a slight show of envy of Magician Fireworks by King Photoshop (if they were actual beings. lol.) just because it can do a few tricks and is more user friendly than it. Jokes aside, we know that you as a company are capable to taking Fireworks to greater heights with contributions from PS and IL as it has done the same thing for them. TO EACH HIS TOOLS so please don’t kill our tool of choice.

– Anita
CEO, SmartWebby.com

By Nenad - 2:53 AM on July 13, 2013

Dear Adobe,

I really don’t see where are you going with this?
You just released a survey in which you are trying to figure out what is the good path for a future of screen design tools, and kudos on that! That is the great way to gather information from users…but shouldn’t you done this before you killed one and only useful onscreen design tool you have in your portfolio!

This only shows that you don’t know where to go with this? Maybe I’m wrong I would like to see people from Adobe start participating in this dissuasion?

Like many webdesigner asked in their comments: Adobe, what are you doing???
And why don’t you care about your customers anymore?

I use FW since the beginning. And for me it is realy the smartest tool for creating professional screendesign. Looking forward, I now have to find a different solution that fits my needs. Sorry, PS is not the alternative. Neither the trillion of “littel-tools”, Adobe is developing nowadays.

Very sad. But maybe industrie standards will change away from Adobe products in future? I feel: Adobe is making a very good job on that for the last months.

Best Holger
from formativ.net wedesign agency.

By Bruce Denham - 9:37 AM on July 17, 2013

What?? That’s really sad. Adobe says, “We understand that Fireworks has one of the most passionate communities on the web, and that this change will be difficult to accept. Our goal in refocusing our development efforts is to build a new-generation of task focused tools that enable our customers to create great web content.”

Umm. “A new-generation of task focused tools”? Hmmm. You already have that in Fireworks. It’s the best “task focused” tool I own! Give it some bug fixes, improve existing features, add a few where it’s lacking, and you’re there!

I understand if you want to refactor the FW code base. I’m sure there’s a lot of legacy code that makes the FW dev team want to cry. But the functionality that Fireworks provides is unique among the design tools out there right now. And it would be a real shame if you weren’t actively working to replace that unique feature set with something just as good…and then better.

Saying that the change will be difficult to accept and then trying to justify the difficulty a shallow we’re-going-to-give-you-something-better posture is weak until you have a product that gives us what you are taking away.

I’m disappointed with the management decisions involved in this. I can only hope that those same managers at Adobe are actively building a replacement app that offers the same great FW blend of vector/bitmap graphic design features.

Was at a MAX conference yesterday. Nothing great about the tiny tools that are being focussed on as replacements for Fireworks. WAKE UP GUYS!!! You already have the tool that you are looking to build for web designers….FIREWORKS with ILLUSTRATORS ‘ brushes and PHOTOSHOP’s filters (and some more) will become the standard to web design that you are searching for. PHOTOSHOP is bulky (and rightly so) because of its other various capabilities (wow great new features) that are so much required for you main customer base PHOTOGRAPHERS and VIDEO SPECIALISTS.

WAKE UP!!! WAKE UP!!! WAKE UP!!! WAKE UP!!!

DEVELOP!!! DEVELOP!!! DEVELOP!!! DEVELOP!!!

By Nando - 2:20 AM on July 18, 2013

Fireworks. We want Fireworks in the XXI century as that new tools you are thinking of building. We already had it. We just need it to be seriously fixed.

And be aware WE ARE NOT ONLY WEB OR UI DESIGNERS!

Me, and many others use it to create vector graphics and the is no way I will start using Illustrator for this. We want the fast effective intuitive tool that Fireworks is fixed and modernized. Please do not make another msonter app. Just bring FW to this days.

Why would you possible go this route? I’ve been using Fireworks for about 12 years now and is a vital pieace of software for all web developers. Watching someone design a site in Photoshop is like watching paint dry. Every webdesigner I know prefer Fireworks above anything else, just for its power and siplicity.

Fireworks is the core of many many companies and asking people to convert to something else will cost them a lot of money in hours wasted in learning new software.

Fireworks is a vital part of the workflow, can import vectors and can be further easily tweaked for design purposes not to mention easy and quick export into many image formats for the web.

This is such a bad move…. im really sad this is happening… its going to upset many people obvioulsly adobe do not care enough, from what i have heard the replacement programs are sub standard so really Adobe will be in a position that will probably get many to move to a competitors products like Corel Xara or something like that…

Very very sad…

By Jon - 5:09 PM on July 18, 2013

I will miss the ‘Pages’ option with shared/global layers. I can make a change to one file that will flow though all other files. I also love using slices & hotspots to export clickable prototypes.

I second the post that said that I feel like i’m baking cookies on a stovetop while using Illustrator/Photoshop for this stuff.

I just read another blog post elsewhere people are going mad… one of the best comments i could resonate with is that you cannot select objects and manipulate ON THE CANVAS like you can in Fireworks…. photoshop has the layer approach not by object like Fireworks….. i will not be forced to use bloaty Photoshop for web design…. id rather jump ship and use something else from another company. Here is the blog post for a good read.

I’m not a FW power user but what i REALLY appreciate about this program is the ability to work on separate PAGES and clickable graphic elements. Those 2 functions alone make the program something worth keeping.

I used this feature just this week to prototype a web design for a new client. It would have taken me hours longer to do the same work using ANY other app.

Another thing I like much more in FW is the guides are pixel-perfect. Even photoshop can’t compare as I often fight the guides in PS, which are often 1-pixel off, or a guide splits a pixel.

My workflow goes like this: I design in FW, export my sliced graphics and take that design to WordPress and everything work flawlessly. You are basically killing 50% of my workflow. Yes, I will change my workflow now, but I won’t be happy at Adobe because I do not see a viable alternative using any of the current tools.

Don’t be fooled into thinking the whole world designs in browser. Thats a foolish and impractical way to work through design explorations. FW is the best design exploration tool available for web. Period.

I’d also vote for you to release all rights to FW and either send it to open source or sell it off and let someone else continue to support the FW base.

Lets Fight for our love of Fireworks, make adobe re-think of what thy doing, at least sell it to Macromedia again if adobe company developers cant do better than make few changes, so adobe decision is stop of developing this software its just sad decision, why buy it to Macromedia and after few version kill it, why adobe Fireworks when this software is unique and powerful, why adobe dont try merge both ps and fw into something big, its hard to understand when adobe company dont listen the voices and the comments of fireworks lovers and clients.

I came here looking to ask why I can’t get past 54% installation of Fireworks CC. Now I see that it’s dead or something.

I really don’t understand. Within the Creative Cloud there are articles about the use of Fireworks and how wonderful an idea it is. I’ve never used it, but since I do web sites and I found this and more, “…Fireworks provides web designers with a lightweight, effective means of creating graphics for their webpages without getting deep into code or lost amid multiple color palettes, and smoothly integrates with Photoshop, Illustrator,
and Dreamweaver…”

Is it or ain’t it? Why is it in my Creative Cloud list of programs yet it won’t install past 54%?

By Jake - 2:06 AM on July 23, 2013

I can’t believe this! Are you serious?! Do you expect me to use bloated PhotoFlop??!!

So now you are forcing me to:
Group layers instead of having Pages.
Have plugins to export my PNG files as super small,light and zippy little images instead of just optimizing it in the Fireworks panel.
Click on a layer instead of the program selecting the layer for me when I click on the image.
Select the Marquee tool instead of just double clicking on a bitmap.
Deselect the Marquee tool instead of simply double clicking on the canvas background.
Create sprites by hand – oh Fireworks did this so well… I guess I can use SASS/Compass.
Export page designs by hiding layers one by one instead of using Firework’s “Export Pages to Files” function.
Rasterize and image before I can apply a gradient.
Draw a background layer instead of having a canvas colour.
And last but least… charge my clients much more because things in Photoshop takes twice as long to do

There must be an alternative to Fireworks out there!

I hate it when Adobe says Fireworks is for “rapid prototyping”! I can do anything that you can do in Photoflop and faster with Fireworks.

Adobe read this Comments and think About what you are losing and give some hope that you still have open window of adobe fireworks that you will continue the legacy, be open mind dont waste develop other things when you have a popular thing, if need rebuild or correct lets do it and dont kill it because if you do, you fail and totally fail of this company.

By Holy Mackeral - 7:01 AM on July 23, 2013

Wait – I have to now go to the Cloud to get less for more money only to remain frustrated about the discontinuance of product quality and response to client needs?

I thought I got this with CS6!

By William Murray - 8:41 AM on July 23, 2013

I don’t see what all the complaining is about. Adobe is still going to sell and support Fireworks, they’re just not upgrading it anymore.

It’s about time they actually admitted that they don’t want to improve it since it has barely been updated for years over several versions. I hated that every time I paid a hundreds of dollars to upgrade Master Suite I found out that Fireworks still didn’t work that well, there were barely any new features and the broken stuff was still broken (the Photoshop Live Effects Gradient fill has been broken for years on the Mac). The interface always seems clunky compared to Photoshop and Illustrator (try using a Wacom tablet in Fireworks).

That being said, I still use Fireworks because of features that are non-existent in Photoshop and Illustrator, and these are the things Adobe needs to add to PS/AI to make me drop Fireworks:

Pages and States: These palettes are critical for creating real-world web site and app comps. In a single document you can create multiple pages, each with its own dimensions and resolution, and pages can use master template items for common elements. If you’re designing for mobile apps, you can create your @1x iPhone graphics in one page, then the @2x retina graphics in another page with the resolution/dimensions doubled. Nothing like this in Photoshop.

Auto-layers: Draw a rectangle in Fireworks, or paint with the brush, it creates a new layer for you. Photoshop sort of does this now with Shape Layers, but it’s not as auto-magic as Fireworks.

Export 32-bit PNG: Photoshop STILL does not have 32-bit PNG export, and you have to use PNGCrush for Photoshop-exported PNGs to strip out the color profile that causes color shift issues in IE.

Until Adobe puts these features into PS, Fireworks CS6 will remain in my Mac dock.

Thanks for this fantastic post, I really liked it very much! Its really helpful for us!

By mvonwahlde - 10:39 AM on July 24, 2013

I use Illustrator, PS, and FW everyday. I know them all inside and out. Neither PS or Illustrator can fill the role FW does, or ever can given their history and primary target audiences. It’s the primary reason I have always bought Creative Suite.

Obviously this is financial decision on adobes part, but when I look at the proliferation of marginally useful (and niche) product (speedgrade, prelude, etc..)

I suspect the codebase that FW is based (when they acquired it) on is limited and it’s just not practical to extend it any further and the market isn’t big enough for a rewrite. Often happens in the software biz…

By Chris - 2:00 PM on July 24, 2013

I agree with you for the money arguments and hope I will agree with you for the workflow/role part in near future of Ps. I am trying Ps to design web and apps. Cool tools like Skala will be well working with Ps and will make it much easier to design directly on the devices. But the way you can play with the elements on the canvas, create new pages to quickly test some effects and different styles or interactive elements in Fw will be lost on Ps (for me at this time). Rapid prototyping is so important for interaction design, Ps has sooo much to learn about it and I really not be sure (by financial aspects) that the web community will beat the photo and print community on Ps, so it will takes years to have a tool with Ps that will allow the way we design invisible but important stuff (interaction and UX) in Fw.

By Chris - 1:49 PM on July 24, 2013

I am wondering why Dreamweaver still be part of the “Suite”. I agree with Adobe for cutting parts of a workflow in smaller piece of software, so we can better include other tools from awesome and creative developers (Coda, Transmit, CodeKit, etc.). But Fireworks, compared with Dreamweaver, was unbeatable. There will be much cooler FTP software than Dw, better code editor than Dw, better design tools than Dw (guess which one). But I think to many ordinary people who need a website (or something that should look like that) will buy Dw, so they will miss too much money… KILL Dw, KEEP Fw!

By Jason - 7:30 PM on July 24, 2013

What?! Why?! I finally switched from 2 programs (PS & Ai) to 1 ( Fireworks) about a year ago and thought to myself “why did I not change sooner?”. Fireworks made it possible to work twice as fast.

Can we at least have “Pages” and proper vector editing in Photoshop as well as all the other Fireworks goodies?

Why would you do this though? did you realize Fireworks user base is slowly growing and eating up the other’s market share?

By Tee - 11:06 PM on July 24, 2013

I’m want adobe firework but I’m not want abobe photoshop

By Scott Webb - 12:14 PM on July 26, 2013

Time to switch to to Sketch and Corel. Adobe – I will be canceling my Adobe CC shitscription and if I have to learn how to use the 25 ton tank (photoshop) to do develop agile web and UI layouts, then I’ll have time to learn a new program like sketch or move entirely to Corel.

If you’re going to kill some programs, kill InDesign and Flash too. Goodbye Adobe. The ONLY reason I will use you is my company still provides the software on our company machines. But all my personal design workstations will be dumping the A”DOPE” suite.

By Cecilia - 9:13 AM on July 28, 2013

I absolutely hat Photoshop for screen work. Photoshop is a print tool fir photography, and Fireworks is an in screen tool. I know Adibe will never ever listen to users, so I just hope someone else will come up with a tool that does what Fireworks does. The merger of Macromedia and Adobe should have been stopped by the Feds because it stopped competition and puts users in a position of powerlessness. A bet these guys are not even listening or reading any of this.

By Jacob - 4:58 AM on July 31, 2013

someone else did come up with a tool to replace Fireworks (RIP, Respect!) it’s called Pixelmator

By Chris - 3:41 PM on July 28, 2013

Most on these posts are carrying on that they now have to find an alternative application because Fireworks will no longer be produced/supported. Forget using anything else, just keep using the same version of Fireworks. I can see myself using Fireworks CS6 for years to come. Only when you start to find that web tech changes to the point that Fireworks can’t help would you need to change to something else. If it does the job, use it. I used Macromedia Fireworks version 6 up until CS6 was released only recently and I never had any issues with it – in fact I could still use that same old version, it does everything I mainly use now. Graphical elements on the web haven’t changed even though coding behind it may have – A GIF is still a GIF and a JPG is still a JPG. When Fireworks fails to do what you need it to do, then and only then would I worry about looking at something else – and who knows, by then, there maybe some better than Fireworks and you would have forgotten all about Fireworks. You also need to remember, Adobe are not in to make everyone happy, they’re just in it to make Money, just as CC is doing. By using CC they’re monopolizing their licensing sales.

May I add my name to the huge numbers of people who love this program and will REALLY miss it. For many of us who work with web or screen-based design and are not interested in the high-end photography capabilities of Photoshop (I have a camera for that), or who wish to work with IMAGES so the great features of Edge are simply not appropriate, Fireworks has been an amazing and invaluable tool and Photoshop/Illustrator are simply not substitutes. Please, Adobe, don’t kill this program. I have been using it since version 2 and I LOVE it. And to those who have pointed out that we will be able to use the current program for a long time into the future, this assumes (if you are a Mac user) that Apple will let us run old program’s in distant future OS versions, and we know from experience that the long-term likelihood of that is slim. If Adobe kill Fireworks, our time will be limited. Please reconsider this decision, or, at the very least, please sell it to somebody else so that we don’t lose it altogether.

By Toby Bridson - 7:16 AM on July 30, 2013

Make it open source at least, so we can retain and improve this product …if Adobe won’t.

I will always use Fireworks to do my conceptual prototypes, its quick and easy – Photoshop or any other current product is not!

All Fireworks Lovers lets show to Adobe that we will never give up of Adobe Fireworks, it can change of company but i will follow Fireworks every place he goes, thy can kill but thy will not kill our love so Adobe Company change your policy and work harder or sell it again to macromedia at least the customers need to see and to have the hope that this software have the love of the company that makes difference between the success or the fail.

My love to this unique software, there is no replace and i underline this there is no replace for our loyalty do Adobe Fireworks

80% of my work day is spent in Fireworks. I will not be upgrading to the Creative Cloud. And I will not use Photoshop for the things that are 500% faster to do in Fireworks, and in many cases result in cleaner graphics (custom anti-aliasing, for example). The combination of vector and bitmap control in Fireworks is second to none. Way to kill an incredible thing, Adobe. I’ve lost all respect.

Thanks to the poster above that recommends CorelDraw. I’ve downloaded my free trial and will aim at using it exclusively. Adios Adobe. Oh, btw, since we’re venting… Macromedia Freehand was lightyears ahead of Illustrator (anybody remember the 3D grids in the early versions of Freehand?). But then, you probably got rid of the Macromedia engineers too…

A$obe isn’t concerned with customers. Profits yes, customers no. Fireworks was always treated like the red-headed step child of the creative suite. If Adobe have properly funded it’s development and marketing, it would still be in production today. I appreciate that they at least finished fixing many of the bugs in CS6. Adobe, hear our cry. RETURN FIREWORKS TO THE PEOPLE!

By Amir - 2:01 AM on August 5, 2013

Perhaps it is better to infer that we should not rely on Adobe products anymore, because sooner or later Adobe is a software killer!

It seems a shame they are dropping Fireworks without providing a decent alternative.

For me at least, Photoshop is a step backwards for web design and a none productive use of my time.

I also agree that Fireworks would have made the ideal candidate for the new Edge suite.

Seems that Adobe is moving towards a profit focused corporation in recent years

By Andy - 2:37 AM on August 6, 2013

as webdesigner, i agree with the most voices:
there is still NO ALTERNATIVE to fireworks. making 3(?) different software “to meet the designers needs” (for doing just the same only in fireworks) is just a lousy way to say “hey, you HAVE to use the cloud tools”.

By Marcos Paulo - 9:45 AM on August 6, 2013

Fireworks is the software I prefer the professional schools and here at the company where I work, to create layouts for websites. A shame that Adobe has made a decision as ridiculous as this.

By Natalie - 6:33 PM on August 6, 2013

Looking at Adobe’s replies, it’s clear that they have huge gaps in understanding who the target user of Firefox is, what their needs are, etc. So disappointing.

Adobe what were you thinking?! Fireworks was what a vector image editor should be. It’s pretty obvious that you had it in for Fireworks for a long time. It was never promoted, always relegated to the “Other Adobe Products” on your website. Instead of killing it you should have been learning from it over the years. Simple, smooth, direct manipulation of objects with an intuitive menu structure. What’s wrong with that? Illustrator is very powerful but many workflows seem archaic–like they were designed for a time when computers didn’t have the power to show changes immediately. I never felt that way about Fireworks. And I never felt “stuck” with a change I made.

If you want to create new tools with the ease and power of Fireworks, by all means do it. But let’s see them before you give up on Fireworks.

By TimTee - 10:34 AM on August 8, 2013

When I went to go download he C apps, I didn’t see fireworks I thought, no, Adobe couldn’t be that out of touch with the real world. Seriously. Overlap with PS and IL? Do you really think that? Because if you do, you completely misunderstand a huge userbase’s workflow, and our reasons for using fireworks for what it excels in, and NOT PS IL. I use PS IL when I have work that they excel in. I rely on ALL 3! That’s why I have CC!

This is beyond ridiculous. And please, keep fixing fireworks because as of CS5-CS6 it runs like a dog in 10.8

By M Aronoff - 12:53 AM on August 9, 2013

I do not care what tool I use but I do care about the functionality.

Dropping fireworks with folding the functionality into Photoshop is a big mistake. For a true Web Professional Photoshop is not the same as fireworks at all. In Fireworks I can drop do most of the same things I could do in Photoshop but with far less bloat. that makes things faster.

There are two must haves that they need to port over to Photoshop. First is that ability to work on an image, and then in a floating panel set the web output type and click one button to preview the out put and then be able to click an export button and be done without altering the original file. This function in Fireworks alone saves so much time. Save As does not work the same at all! And Save for web is a joke. I have to wait for a window to open. Mess with the output. If I am not happy with something in the original image I need to cancel, wait for the window to close, edit the image and start over with the save for web. It is so slow.

The second must have feature is giving Photoshop the ability to open Fireworks PNG files. I have so many layered Fireworks PNG files and Photoshop can’t open them. How is Photoshop a replacement tool then?!?

By Zuhr - 4:06 AM on August 13, 2013

They bought macromedia, not to develop the products but to slowly killing it.
we see, adobe first abandon flash by knock out flex framework replaced by edge animate.
Now, they discontinued Fireworks,
and guess next? they will replace Dreamweaver with such toys like muse and reflow.
They abandon AS4,
they stop developing Spry.js,
what a bad company.

Adobe, this is a really poor decision. Instead, you should do a 180 and market the heck out of it, because in case you didn’t notice, it’s gaining popularity amongst serious web designers. If not that, then please take all interface and UI cues from Fireworks and replace the convoluted, illogical UI in Photoshop / Illustrator. Ugh, this is so dumb. Reconsider, please!?

I teach in the Web Design, Development, Internet Marketing and Graphic Design programs at Emory University ECE (Atlanta). In our core process, we teach that during the design/creative phase of a project, front-end designers should know how to use PhotoShop (a bitmap editor, which should not be used for text development, nor as a design production environment), Illustrator (the best vector editor) and Fireworks (a superb Web production and prototyping environment). My frustration over the years with Adobe is that you try to dilute these tools, especially PhotoShop into a one-stop-design-shop (and given it’s a bitmap editing tool, that is just a bad application of this excellent editing tool). Now with this decision about (likely) phasing out your production/prototyping tool, I am left quite exasperated. I spend a lot of time explaining to students that Dreamweaver is NOT a Web design tool, but a coding tool. That PhotoShop should be used to edit existing bitmapped images and Illustrator to create art from scratch. I get how the updates in DW CC are very designer-specific, and great to bring in coding capabilities for HTML5/CSS3 (and responsive design). All good. And that the new Edge tools are exciting for animation (sans Flash). But you have this giant missing hole in the design process for front-end Web folk by phasing out (or abandoning Fireworks). When you first purchased Macromedia and at first decided to not even continue supporting Fireworks, the Web designer world revolted … and you backtracked, kept it and made some basic updates. One commenter here is quite correct: The problem is that you’ve not marketed it properly, you never fully embraced Fireworks and made it an Adobe tool. Most of my students have PhotoShop experience, some Illustrator, but few if any have Fireworks. But, once I teach them all three editors and in a proper workflow, they are passionate about Fireworks, especially, and see the best use for these 3 unique editors for Web design. I see no problem, whatsoever, with having these design tools as expert/specific components of the whole workflow. When you dilute great products like PhotoShop (like in the past), trying to create that all-in-one product, it just mucks-up what it is in the workflow. I wish you would not only maintain Fireworks (but in the CC), but build it into a comprehensive plan to best suit a designer’s (and educator’s) needs.

By Toby - 5:54 PM on August 14, 2013

I have found a solution Fireworks people, there is a product called ‘Antetype’ which i tried a few days ago. It’s in the beginning phases but can do everything Fireworks can do + a lot more just in a slightly different way.

If it’s any indication of how good this product is – I purchased it after only 2 hours of using the trial.

It’s a dedicated wireframing / visual prototyping tool which allows the creation of symbols, nested symbols, interactions, clickakble prototypes…. but also a lot more you don’t get in Fireworks and are very unlikely to get from Adobe… ever.

To look at the app initially, it does not have the traditional toolbox and interface elements you expect in Fireworks or other Adobe products. It’s very tidy and encompasses everything in a handy side bar.

The way it works is base shapes are drawn on the stage, and then styled using the Style Inspector – shadows, bevels…everything you can do in Fireworks and Photoshop layer styles can be applied here. You can cut and paste graphics from external sources but its best practice to create you own library from scratch for maximum flexibility.

Once you have the various buttons and object assets you need – (this is the really cool bit) a variety of customisable rules can be placed upon any objects in the page, such as stretch to fit available space, padding and margins, different states, hide and show items when a condition is met etc. Nesting of objects inside objects and a large variety of other behaviours.

The subtle power of this tool becomes evident once you start prototyping. It was very quick to style and adjust my design as needed and then output a nice clickable prototype.

The nicest thing i like about Antetype is the ‘create specification sheet’ feature which will take your graphic and break it down for your developers. (You can cut and paste the CSS too) – take a peek, its just awesome.

And yes you can output all your graphics assets you’ve created from it too (with all states if needed) , Png, Jpg whatever.

I was excited to discover changing an art board size can be done by dragging the art board edge.

Yes it has multiple pages.

Any Drawbacks?

I’d say this is not a conceptual design tool, its more for users who have a firm idea of what they want in terms of established styles and appearance. I’d assume the conceptual stuff which Fireworks was really good at will need to be done in some other product to achieve the look you want, then use Antetype. I could be wrong as I’ve only using this tool for a few days so far.

No photoshop or fireworks file or style imports, so you will need to create your styles from scratch – Ugh

Totally gutted! I use Fireworks every day! Its my baby! 😀 Forget Illustrator or Photoshop for Web design…too slow and not as user friendly for web design. So many more useful features in Fireworks at the others don’t have. I really hope the same features are in the new software! I hope its good!

By Phil - 11:08 AM on August 15, 2013

Everything has gone downhill since Adobe bought Macromedia. Fireworks is the tool I use most for web graphics, Photoshop is a big cumbersome clunker where web layouts are concerned. Reconsider your decision.

By Alexander Bath - 2:41 PM on August 15, 2013

Really really disappointed with this decision! Fireworks is an essential part of my web development workflow and I really don’t know where to go from here when support ceases. I can’t understand why you’re killing off a product with such a big user base! Don’t get me wrong, I adore Photoshop, but for image editing, NOT web design.

I’ve watched all the CS6 apps get updated to CC but no Fireworks…so stumbled on this page.

Epic disappointment.

I’ve been using FW since beta 1.0 and can’t fathom using Photoshop for web design / prototyping (a function for which Photoshop is severely ill-suited). Adobe, I will switch to using another tool other than Photoshop for web design. Photoshop just isn’t good enough. But perhaps you could salvage some of it by incorporating some of Fireworks best tools INTO Photoshop. Making Photoshop “object”-based instead of your convoluted “layers” concept would be a complete software rewrite, but I think we would all appreciate it. There’s also no reason Photoshop couldn’t be more intuitively vector-vector based. I think you could actually make a hybrid tool with the best of both and make everybody happy.

Adobe, you probably won’t even read this or take what I say into consideration because, based on this decision to end FW, it’s obvious that you don’t care about what your customers think. I’m going to say it anyway though: Fireworks is a web design tool – Photoshop and Illustrator are not. Adobe has never had web-based authoring tools until they bought Macromedia, meaning that Adobe was never a web design/development oriented company and doesn’t understand web design. Why did you buy Macromedia only to slowly kill off their products? You should have left them alone. I can only hope a competing company comes along and fills the void left by FW. As for you Adobe, I’ve spent thousands of dollars on your CS software over the years, but no more. You just lost my business.

By backo - 3:31 PM on August 16, 2013

Currently there are no Adobe programs that can replace Fireworks.
Fireworks is web oriented software, and if you ask me I really don’t have objections on Fireworks. It is not outdated or anything like that…

And for that new tool keep good stuff from Fireworks, possibility to create pages, small size of saved files and showing a lot of properties (object or text) on just one click.

Anyway I sign up for making suggestions for new tool your intending to build.

By backo - 3:46 PM on August 16, 2013

And one more thing:
Can anyone explain to me difference between Dreamweaver and Muse?
Now you have two softwares for making html/css, but no software for designing them?

I agree with anyone who has used Fireworks form the beginning with Macromedia. Adobe had struggled for so long to complete with Macromedia in web development hence the buyout. PhotoShop was never as friendly or efficient in Web Design (photos/print yes) and the integration from the start was Fireworks and Dreamweaver. I will use Fireworks CS6 so long as I have the ability to design with it over PhotoShop any day. It’s faster, easier, multiple designs within one file, slicing/export images more effective and with properties way faster and more intuitive than PhotoShop could ever hope to be UNLESS, take Fireworks efficiency and built them into PhotoShop. Physical file size for storage was also much smaller.

By Ethan OBrien - 2:33 PM on August 23, 2013

Justice Dept never should have let Adobe buy Macromedia. That said, the birth of CC and death of Fireworks may create a fertile environment for new companies with new, cheaper tools.

So how do we fill this void once Fireworks dies and becomes unsupported?

I have been using Macromedia Fireworks personally since late 90’s – and have always asserted that Fireworks is THE Web/UI tool. I’ve improved the work flow of other designers who were stuck on Photoshop. Now what?

I use Firworks for all of my web design based projects. In my opinion, Photoshop doesn’t even compete. I wish more designers would give it a try…I firmly believe they would make the switch in a heartbeat after a couple of weeks using it.

I’m glad you are keeping it around and supported, and I’m interested to see what tools you have in the works. I hand-code all of my sites, so I’m not particular about HTML/CSS output from the design programs.

I really love Fireworks and I preach it all the time. I’m hoping I never have to resort to Photoshop…I HATE it for web design, it just doesn’t make sense. From an overal user experience, anyone who has really given it a chance, know that Fireworks is the clear winner.

No Fireworks! I’m not only sad, but very dissapointed to don’t upgrade the product. Fireworks was for me my Swiss knife for web designing, prototyping and ultra-fast image processing (of course i cannot compare it with photoshop, but hey! I do vector masks in one click while in photoshop i create layers and do the process….)

I hope adobe reconsider the decision. I knew freehand was a very good tool that passed away long ago, but fireworks should not have the same destiny. Rapid protoyping, rapid edition and a lot of good stuff make fireworks one of the favorite tools for many designers.

I know the web is not the same since fireworks was released, but for other kind of works, fireworks is a must have.

Adobe Fireworks can´t disappear its not only a question of existing other adobe software but its question of making difference, adobe fireworks is more simple to use and archive many things easily than other tools, and if adobe says “Designing for the screen in 2013 is incredibly different to designing for the screen in 1998″, why giving up? adobe should try to rebuilt and give a chance to users help adobe build and test it, its adobe responsibility of keep alive adobe fireworks and make a challenge to your developers rebuild the adobe fireworks and also challenge we customers, people, loves of adobe fireworks joining the challenge, after all adobe buy it to macromedia so you cant give up because it means all the team adobe fail, so that so easy give up and put in garbage and let people forget it?, what kind of company is this buy things and couple time change a bit and give up?, read my words carefully because if i coment a lot in this sad new its because i care about this software and i cant agree the choices you choose for Adobe Fireworks and not Consulting the Customers which thy are main target and you cant live without then.